Childhoods' End
by Pterobat
Summary: Years after the end of the series, Kaiba tries to reconnect with certain people that he still holds a grudge towards. Of course it won’t be easy.
1. Prologue

**Childhood's End**

**Prologue**

He lay in bed, rigid as steel. Outside his bedroom window the birds were calling the dawn, but he didn't care. He stared at the canopy above him, closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them slowly. Finally, with a snarl of frustration, he swung himself out of bed and into his slippers. Like his pyjamas, the slippers were a light blue-grey in a cheap imitation of a Blue Eyes' hide. Kaiba walked across the room with brisk strides and slammed the bathroom door behind him.

When he asked himself again why he had bothered going to bed at all, the answer was because something was dragging his body down, rendering him incapable of work. Being up for most of the night thinking about it had done nothing to ease the pain, and it was good that the night of idleness was now over; he had rested in some way, and could work and talk and try to forget.

Emerging cleaned and brushed, he looked at the deck and Duel Disk resting on the table at the foot of his bed. It was then that he realized he wanted to sit and think about what he'd done. Why had it come out that way, as if he was a bad child who was supposed to sit in the corner. He hadn't been bad, had he? Of course not.

No, there was something at the back of his mind. What was it? It was something very important. Not about the duel.

Kaiba walked to the closet and pulled the sliding door open, and suddenly his anger swelled into fury. He struck at the hanging rack of clothes; leather bodysuits, long studded coats, suits, casual clothes all rattled as he moved them with one vicious sweep of his long arm. Breathing hard, he struggled for calmness and finally snatched at it, becoming not relaxed but cold, in a way that felt good, or at least adequate.

Yugi wouldn't beat him at taking his life back, too!

_Wait, wait. What the heck am I doing? This isn't...? What is...?_

Shaking his head roughly, he then chose his purple outfit. While snapping shut the padded metal armbands Kaiba studied himself in the dressing mirror, remembering the last time he had worn it. He noted with a small measure of satisfaction that Ishizu had been wrong after all: Kaiba had never returned the card to her, Yugi had gotten it.

_Yugi!_

He would get over it. It hurt now, but if he was strong he would overcome it, Tear his pain away, go back to "merely" being the eccentric millionaire CEO, get his life and his mind back in order before challenging Yugi again in the future.

But now look at that; he was so lost in himself that he almost walked into Mokuba, who was waiting on the other side of the bedroom door. Kaiba stepped back hurriedly, reaching out to touch the top of his brother's head as if afraid he had broken him.

With a burst of self-hate Kaiba remembered what he had been trying not to forget. There was no reason to ask what Mokuba was doing up this early in the morning on a day that wasn't a school day. Kaiba felt very sick, which he called himself.

"Seto?"

It took too much effort to keep from falling. Some part of Kaiba was still going on unchanged, and noticed wryly that he was at his weakest and for a moment too preoccupied to fight against it. Joey's words filled his mind. _He said he was happy bein' all alone. So I guess what that means is he doesn't need_ you_, Mokuba. Some big brother._

_Suck it up. Now. Face up to how you made him feel. _Kaiba crouched down to look at Mokuba, noticing for the first time that Mokuba was fully dressed, and wondering if he had been awake for as long as he had been.

"Seto, are you okay?"

"No," he said, wanting to be honest. "But I will be. I just have to be a man and get over it, that's all." After a pause, he decided to go ahead anyway and ask the obvious question. "Why are you up this early?"

"I was worried about you. You know, you worked so hard and, well, a lot of things happened that we didn't expect..."

Kaiba wanted to hug Mokuba and tell him it was all right, and thought with regret that, no matter how mature Mokuba could appear, no matter how much Kaiba believed that no one should be sheltered from anything, Mokuba was still so _young_... He shouldn't have to deal with this. He should have a childhood.

_I think what Yugi said about you was right: you're filled with hate! Why don't you smile anymore? I know our childhood wasn't the best, but at least we had fun sometimes. And now, you're always in a bad mood, and I want it back the way it was._

"And what I said to you. I didn't mean it...there's more to you than hate...I should know that, even if nobody else does, and..."

"Mokuba." He had no right to tell his brother to forget, to dismiss it all even in the name of calmness. "What do you want to do?"

"Huh?"

"Look, I'm asking you. I'm not trying to justify what I said, and I have my own ideas about...things. I want to know how you'd like to deal with it."

Mokuba looked off to the side, clearly uncomfortable. Mentally Kaiba slapped himself, though he had no idea how else to approach the situation. That was no excuse for making Mokuba uncomfortable, idiot.

"Why don't we just...talk? Act like a family, I mean. Normal."

_You will_ not _take away the only family I have!_

Kaiba closed his eyes and started to hate himself again...for being weak...for letting himself lose...

_Stop that._

"All right, sure."

"Let's go downstairs. Are you hungry?"

"No."

It was too early for the kitchen staff to be up and Kaiba didn't want to see anyone else anyway, but he had taught both Mokuba and himself how to use everything in the mansion, because if you could help it, you should never let anyone have total control of even a small aspect of your life.

They sat on one of the big leather couches in the living room, not looking at each other but sitting close.

"So, are you going to duel Yugi again?" Mokuba asked this with a cheeriness that rang false in Kaiba's ears.

He knew his brother was afraid of the answer, and Kaiba felt a stirring in his chest, the word "duel" bringing up feelings he did not want now. His heart beat faster, and his body became electric with anticipation. But it was no agony to say, "No. Absolutely not. We're pursuing another dream, one that we're going to do together."

"The other Kaiba Lands, right?"

"Yes."

Kaiba looked over at Mokuba to see him smile, but wasn't entirely calm. He hated feeling vulnerable and overexcited like this. But he had to know. Should he wait? Mokuba was always the one who made the small talk. Right now, the silence was uncomfortable.

_Is it over?_, was what Mokuba had asked him after he had rushed back into his older brother's arms.

"Seto?"

"Hmm?"

"I wanted to ask you..." Mokuba gulped.

Kaiba realized that he was watching Mokuba intensely, waiting for something, and quickly looked away

"Um. When you said you needed no one, did you mean me, too?"

Oh, yes. The bomb had been dropped. He hadn't ever given much though to the distinction between Mokuba and everyone else. He had told Mokuba just hours before that he had been the one who had saved him. Obviously Kaiba _did_ need him. "No. Of course not. How could I?"

"Then why didn't you say anything?" The sadness was starting to break through. Kaiba wanted to tell Mokuba that he could let it out now, didn't have to pretend happiness for Kaiba's sake, but it was too late now.

And immediately he knew the answer. At the time it would have seemed a logical one, but now it looked like nothing. "You don't show your vulnerability to your enemies, not at a time like that. I had just been humiliated, and couldn't let those geeks see anything less than an iron will." Even though it was the truth and Kaiba wouldn't take it back, it felt wrong for him to say this. "I know it's not what you wanted to hear, and anyway it's a pathetic reason. It _doesn't explain away_ _anything_. I hurt you and there's no excuse."

He looked back at Mokuba, who seemed to be studying him, and Kaiba understood again that Mokuba was not a child anymore, that everything he had done and wanted didn't change the fact that Mokuba was different, that he had, like himself, grown up too fast.

"But Seto, why didn't you remember in the first place? When you said you were alone, that you rejected the past...why didn't you?"

Again, he automatically had a foul answer. "Because you're different, Mokuba. At the time I wasn't thinking about it, but you're the only person in this world that I care about. So I must have thought...I must have thought that you would know that, that you would instantly know that I left you out of those declarations, because you were above everything, different from everything." Kaiba paused, then drew an arm around Mokuba's shoulders, tugging him closer. "I'm sorry for upsetting you. I was stupid."

"That's all you need to say, Seto. It's not like I thought you didn't love me anymore..."

Kaiba couldn't help it; he sucked in his breath sharply, almost wanting to...what? To frighten Mokuba further by yelling at him, by protesting that of course he did, that he loved Mokuba more than anything else in the world?

"It's just that sometimes...when I think about what happened at the Duel Tower, when I look back on it, I was scared that you might be losing your mind. I'd never heard you talk like that."

_Don't you realize it's my inner rage that pushes me forward!_

_Don't you realize that every single one of us is alone in this world, Yugi! Look at me! I've never had to ask for anyone's help!_

His mind...? It would have sounded ridiculous coming from any other person, but hearing Mokuba say it made it real. After his first defeat by Yugi, he hadn't had a chance to let his rage and desire consume him, being swept up in the conspiracies of the Big Five and Pegasus. Then, somehow, he had gone back work, adult work. Grown-up work. Until he got the call to go to the Domino Museum. Then cry havoc and let slip the dragons of war. Oh yes. Hah.

"And when Noah made us look at our past, it just hit me how different you were back then, when I'd never really thought about it for a long time. I just thought that you had something you really wanted to do, and I needed to help you out because that's what a brother does. I didn't think there was anything wrong with you."

Against his will the formless, impractical desire for dueling flared up again. There was still no real sense of danger coming from this need, but it was so annoying. Why couldn't he have _all_ of it under control? It had felt so _good_...

"Listen, if I've been neglecting you, hurting you in any way..." Then came ugly, melodramatic feelings of terror that Kaiba would have laughed at had he heard them coming from someone else.

Mokuba sounded shocked. "No, no that's not what I mean. You don't think that, do you? I was with you all the time at Battle City. Sure we didn't talk much, but it was really important to you." Suddenly he reached over and patted Kaiba's knee. In a softer tone he said, "So don't worry about that, okay Seto? You're the best big brother anyone could ask for." After a pause, Mokuba added, "You really liked it, didn't you?" He was gentle, not at all accusing. "I guess you're probably still thinking about it, and that's really okay--"

"_No_!" Kaiba shouted, immediately sorry because he made Mokuba jump. "No. I'm moving on, just like I intended to. Of course I still feel it, but it won't matter."

"Then...why did you decide that? Can you really just walk away?"

"I know I can. I may not know why, but I can. Partially because I'm sick of those morons and their speeches. I want to be with _sane_ people for a while."

_I've had about all I can take of you people!_

He had suddenly felt choked, irritated, confined. He didn't want to see any of them ever again. Despite the feelings of loss that moved between anger and despair, he was sure in an instant that he wanted them out of his life, with everything over between them.

"For most of the day I'm going to stay here, but there's one place I have to go.

"Where?"

"To a vault. It's in the same building as the Blue-Eyes jet hangar, and it's where I'm going to put my Duel Disk and all the cards I own. I'm not going to touch them until we're through with this, and I'm locking them up just so I won't be tempted."

Mokuba chuckled, which made Kaiba smile, a bit.

"Are you going to hate them forever, Seto?"

"What?"

"Yugi and his friends."

"I probably will. It's not something I'm proud of, it just _is_." After a moment he add, "With Yugi I might have had some grudging respect, but that's it."

This time Kaiba thought Mokuba would understand, but instead he looked sad again.

"What is it?", he asked, worried for him.

"It's just that, well...they're the only people of your age that you've been around. Don't you think that if you put all this dueling craziness behind you, you might want to be friends with them? I mean, I didn't trust them at first, too, but I got to like them. They're not so bad."

"Why would I want to do that?" Kaiba tried to ask it nicely, but irritation and confusion slipped through. "I'm fine, Mokuba. There are over six billion people in the world. Most of them want everybody to be like them, but I say that at least some of them can live a life without any of the 'normal' things everybody else thinks they need to live.

"You were right about me at Duel Tower, Mokuba. I was obsessed, maybe close to losing it. I hate myself for what I did to you, and right now I feel sick of dueling. But being around people I despise won't do anything to change that."

"I know," said Mokuba. "It's way too early. But you don't think that maybe...?"

"I don't think so. But I'll try not to spend so much time hating them, move them from my mind. And if you want to be friends with them, it's all right. I wouldn't stop you, and I'd try to be civil." Then again, thought Kaiba, with the scenes he had caused around them, maybe Mokuba wouldn't. But he would go along if Mokuba was willing.

His brother nodded slowly.

Kaiba didn't like people to get worried about him. It was partly about the weakness implied, but with Mokuba it was making him feel bad. But there was more, wasn't there? After a long pause, Kaiba said, "I realize now that despite all my pretending to be a worldly, cynical, hard-skinned man of the hour, I wanted my life with you to be this perfect thing, us living in harmony, together forever. The idea of trouble in paradise has probably become so incomprehensible, that I was almost ready to think that any sign of the normal conflict that happens between people was a disaster leading me to call everything into question."

"Maybe that's a mistake we both made, Big Brother. But it doesn't mean anything. Or maybe it means we're just growing up, I don't know."

Growing up? Kaiba reminded himself as he sometimes had to that he was only sixteen, not the man he often pretended to be.

"You know what we should do? We should get up, play some games, and take your mind off of all this. How about chess? We haven't done that in a while."

"But I'd..." I can't think of a tactful way to say, "I'd beat you every time." It wasn't a problem before.

"Well, losing doesn't have to be bad," Mokuba said, apparently understanding. "Don't hold back, okay?"

"When do I ever?"

Mokuba chuckled and took Kaiba's arm off his shoulders, then ran off towards the game room.

Kaiba just sat still, brooding. For a while the only future had been beating Yugi; Kaiba had had no idea what he would have done after that. Would he have found a new obsession, or would he move on? Would he change? Those things didn't matter. What mattered now were the things that had actually happened. Kaiba repeated to himself again that he must try to deal with this in any way he could, take back his world. If that meant putting the cards aside for a while, he would do it. Kaiba pushed himself up off of the couch, refusing to dwell on the fact that it looked too easy.


	2. Chapter 1

**Childhood's End**

**Chapter 1**

Normally the butler or someone else would answer the door, but today Kaiba had to be the one. Tournament season and catching up on work missed while playing showman had taken a lot out of him, but there was no way that he would let it interfere. Now his walk down the stairs had to be purposeful, slow but dignified, giving nothing away.

But he was only halfway along the enormous runner before the door swung open to reveal Mokuba, bags in hand, who swept one lanky arm behind him to close the door; too fast, and the boom echoed in the empty hall.

Kaiba shouldn't be studying his brother, as if his appearing before him as an adult was a novelty, and thankfully the inspection lasted for just a moment before he got control. Mokuba had recently started wearing his black hair shorter but still sticking out everywhere, claiming it made him look like his favourite comic character. He wore an old jacket over jeans and a rumpled t-shirt. The outfit gave Kaiba pause; independence was important, but Mokuba should have asked for more money.

Yet when his brother grinned, shrugged, and spread his arms wide, a rush of sentimentality overwhelmed all that. He moved forward to hug his little brother, who at nineteen was tall and thin like him, but prettier, gentler-featured. When they parted slowly, Kaiba asked Mokuba, "How was your trip?"

"Wet; and the day started out so sunny, too." He was still smiling, which was good; it meant that Mokuba suspected nothing. "So, how're you doing?"

_Shut up, shut you stupid idiot if you dare tell him anything you'll... _"Well, I'm getting sick of the smell of Industrial Illusions breathing down our necks. As if it's our fault that interest in Duel Monsters is waning."

Mokuba cocked his head to one side. "And how do you feel about that? I mean..."

"It doesn't matter, Mokuba. In business you adapt or die, and I'm not about to let nostalgia stand in the way of that. Besides, when I have my memories and my dragons, I don't need anything else, and 'waning' is hardly the right term for something that's only a little less of a worldwide phenomenon than it was. There were plenty of kids at the tournament this year."

"And still cheering for you, huh?" They still stood close enough that Mokuba could reach over and clap him on the shoulder. "Same old Big Brother," he commented with another laugh.

Kaiba grinned, but it was as triumphant as it was friendly. He would welcome his brother simply, not show how immensely relieved he was that his brother would be at home for more than a few days.

Mokuba reached out and tousled his hair, then walked past him. Kaiba stood and adjusted his hair in the mirror by the door; naturally only Mokuba could have gotten away with that. And this walking in a fog of memories had to stop. He was supposed to be lightning-fast, able to process things quickly and act with the firmest conviction. There was no point in being otherwise.

His brother hadn't gone far, was standing in the main hall, looking at everything. "Sometimes I wonder if this place is _ever_ going to stop looking so big." Putting his bags down, he stretched, then looked back over his shoulder with a smirk. "You know, I look at a nice place like this, and it almost makes me rethink leaving."

Mokuba could have stayed for as long as he liked; Kaiba had exerted no pressure in either direction, but his brother wanted to see the world, get a taste of different living. He might come back, and... Should he talk to Mokuba now, or wait for events to take their course? It would be cowardly to wait, but it might be kind.

His brother sighed happily. "I'm just going to put my stuff in my room, okay?"

He felt a burst of hope at that. Why was it still be? It was completely reasonable to expect Mokuba to stay there while he visited. _Get some self control, will you?_

Kaiba followed him upstairs. Mokuba was looking about over the long railing, and into the hallways which were visible from that angle.

No one else was around; the staff was always advised to be discreet, but particularly so when Mokuba came to visit. Kaiba could admit it was to preserve the illusion of complete unity with him, which always came to nothing because he liked the staff and would start chatting with them soon enough. It was another bit of foolishness to eliminate.

Mokuba set the duffel bag down on the bed. "I'll unpack later. Meanwhile, how about a game or five? "

Kaiba nodded. He waited for Mokuba to precede him, and then followed him out.

They talked all the way back downstairs.

"You know, I'm thinking that you were right, Seto."

"About what?"

"Well...I never thought it was going to be sunshine and roses, but I'm starting to wonder if I _can_ make a good living just by messing around with art."

"You can. If you want to do it, there'll be a way."

Mokuba chuckled. "Well, you're sounding optimistic. What happened to the brother who said that I wouldn't be accepted?"

Kaiba stopped. "I _meant_ that it would be hard, because most people don't appreciate such things, and it would be harder if you went on your own money alone." Mokuba was a few steps below him, was looking up with a concerned expression. "Which I'm still proud of you for trying to do."

Mokuba smiled sadly. "I was just making a joke, that's all."

Kaiba suddenly perceived the question as a heavy weight suspended between them, about to drop. _Do you know? _If his brother had been any other person in the world, he would not have held back, he would have asked bluntly: "Can you tell?" But he would not, because he was Mokuba.

Kaiba restarted his descent, making Mokuba go.

"They understand, you know. Junko's perfectly fine with it, too."

Because they probably suspected that Mokuba hadn't cut the cord, those fair-weather morons who had found it so difficult to accept that Mokuba was a person of integrity even if he wasn't rebelling against his wealthy childhood (if they only knew!). He had wanted to walk down to the art college and smack every one of the bohemian fools with his briefcase.

"I know what you're thinking, but it's not like that. They all know that we're different, that you might need a little more help sometimes."

"You don't need to justify yourself to me or anyone else, Mokuba."

"Mmm...yeah."

Mokuba knew. That distant tone had given it away.

_Coward_, Kaiba told himself.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The game room had once been Gozaburo's den, deliberately and aggressively remodelled to reflect the interests and lifestyle the man had disdained. Duel Monsters and corporate duties had prevented Kaiba from matching Mokuba's use of it, but it had hardly been neglected. Mokuba went at once to the main cabinet, a huge glass-fronted one displaying stacks of assorted game boxes and cases. It also had several gaming systems, which could be plugged into the giant television set, and computer games for the several state-of-the-art machines.

But Mokuba wasn't looking at those, but at the framed picture above it, hands clasped behind his back. It was a painting he'd done a few years ago, depicting a Blue-Eyes White Dragon in flight, surrounded by clouds through which ran threads of lightning. There was a smaller one in the bottom part of the frame, which could have been a mate or offspring, but Kaiba knew better. The dragon was stylized, its standard features somewhat altered, anatomy adjusted to slightly more realistic proportions and textures. There was something vaguely unnerving about seeing the Blue-Eyes as a creature in a natural world, but because it was Mokuba's work this could be accepted. "So what do you want, Seto? Chess?"

"Anything you want is fine, Mokuba."

"Okay, chess it is."

His brother unlatched the cabinet and took down the good set, with elaborate manufacture but classic shapes. There were several others, including a Duel Monsters edition in which the Dark Magician was undeservedly King; the Blue-Eyes had been made the Queen instead, and Harpie Lady rooks, Gaia knights, and Kuriboh pawns.

Mokuba carried the box to the main gaming table. The table was heavy, carved, and polished, contrasting strongly with the soft carpet and modern toys around it. Kaiba would play white, of course.

Things began in the right way; he slipped into the rhythm of the game and only paused briefly to plan his moves. Mokuba would have felt cheated if Kaiba had let him win.

"How are you, Seto?"

"You're doing well, the company's doing well, I'm fine."

"You know what I'm asking, right?"

"We made a decision, and it means too much to you to go back on it."

"I know. But it's been bugging me for months, you know. It was just all...too abrupt. Too easy, maybe? I wanted to talk at Christmas, but I decided not to, because I couldn't decide if it was true or not. But now I'm sure."

He must not be weak; he must keep control. "Mokuba, we've been through this. Leaving home is a perfectly normal rite of passage. If I've done _anything_ to make you believe I couldn't handle being alone, tell me and I'll fix it." He was such a weak little fool. "Is that why you came?"

"Not just that. It was the same reason anybody comes to visit their family." He looked at the table before raising his head again. "I was fooling myself thinking I could just up and go like you could in any other family. It's not about you being weak, okay, so don't think that. You're still the strongest person I know. It's about...I don't know. I'm just worried about you, that's all."

"Nothing's wrong here, Mokuba."

The smile was back. "Come on, Seto, we've been joined at the hip ever since I was born. I was supposed to be your heir. It wouldn't mean anything if you had a problem with how things have turned out."

That face. It had been easy enough to say no to on simple matters of parental discipline, but never on emotional disclosure. "You want to know the truth? It still hurts to have you gone. I should be _happy_ for you, but instead I _mope_ like a whiny little--" He would smite what had opposed him, burn it out, excise it.

"Of course it's going to hurt," said Mokuba gently. "It's just like I said. We were--"

"No!" snarled Kaiba. He was standing now, and hurriedly sat back down and stared at the chess game, trying to re-connect with the move he was about to make. "No." He looked back at his brother. "I don't expect myself to be invulnerable anymore; I knew I would miss you. The problem here...the problem is that it hasn't changed for me. It feels like it's the first day after you left. It goes against everything I value, everything I taught you. And since I don't know how to cure it, what would be the point of making you worry?"

"Because if we talked it over, I might be able to _help_. I-It wasn't always easy for me, you know. Sometimes it did feel like the universe was out of joint just because we were apart."

"But you adjusted. Or do we share the same problem?"

"It still hurts a bit. But has gotten better, and knowing that this, or something like it, is what I really want, and that home will be here, helps a lot. I know I could work out of the mansion, but it just wouldn't be the same. I just have this _urge_ to go out and do it, see another world, even if it wouldn't be fun all the time."

Kaiba nodded. They'd had this conversation before, or others like it. Was Mokuba going over it again to reassure himself of the rightness of his choice?

"You don't need to apologize for anything. It's just my problem, Mokuba, not yours."

"How can you say that? Sorry. I know you mean well, and it's my fault, too, I should have brought it up sooner. But I won't let you be in pain."

The anger died swiftly this time. Posturing and protesting his imperviousness, how far had that gotten him anyway? "Then _what_ exactly do you suggest?"

"Well, we can't just fix everything ourselves."

"Why not?"

"Because...because like it or not, we need an outside opinion. We can get too close to see each other's faults; family's like that. And no matter how old we get, I'm always going to be the little brother and you're always going to be the big brother, which means that sometimes I might not say what needs to be said, and neither would you. It doesn't mean we're dishonest, it's just how things work."

Smothering, co-dependence, hypocrisy! He claimed to value independence, but he had reduced Mokuba like this...

He shouldn't have been doing it, but he Kaiba thought again of an encounter he had had years ago. In one of his constant digs at him, Daimon Lector, the right-hand man passed from his stepfather to Kaiba like an unwanted heirloom, had sneeringly suggested that Kaiba not allow Mokuba the freedom to live as a "normal" child if he truly wanted an heir. Kaiba had implicitly and viciously threatened Lector with being fired, but it had only been one of their many skirmishes.

The question of what would have happened if he'd listened had come too many times; the anger sometimes seemed to feed it. The old, inspiring Blue-Eyes drawing had meant nothing. Almost all children liked to draw at that age. Perhaps it would never have been found, and Mokuba would still be there. Part of it had to be in the blood, he'd read enough science, but...but...

"Seto, are you okay?"

That he _wanted_, even for a _moment_, for Mokuba to stay here beyond what his brother chose was unforgivable. When he opened his eyes again, Mokuba was no longer sitting across from him, but Kaiba twisted around to see Mokuba standing at his side. He put a hand on Kaiba's shoulder. "Seto, please don't do this anymore. Tell me what's really going on; tell me what you want."

"I..." He finished that with a growl, and stood up. "Fine. Sometimes what I want is...for things to be the way they were before."

"When?"

Kaiba suspected what Mokuba thought, but it was not true. "When you were younger, and when I had everything." Kaiba stood and began to pace the room, briefly noting the unfinished chess game but deciding to leave it alone. "Not during the Duel Monsters period, but after that, before this." He'd come to look on that earlier era with faint contempt. What he thought of was the business and Kaiba Lands running unchallenged, old wounds ignored, watching Mokuba grow up and feeling so proud...

"It's ridiculous, and more than that, it's _wrong_. My only saving grace is that I figured it out soon enough to curb it. I should have told you, but I was a cowardly fool." He clenched his fists. He'd hurt Mokuba for nothing, now. Why couldn't he have kept himself under control? His shoulders slumped for a moment, but he drew himself up and walked back to his chair. He glanced at the game again. "What you have is more important. But I've lost my fire, Mokuba. It's like I'm fading out, losing my edge, and other sundry metaphors". He scoffed at himself and sat down, masking a bad memory. He would never be ready to confess the dark possibility that had occurred to him several times in the recent past. It had never totally seemed true, the horror possessing a deep core of unreality, but even the thought of it was enough to make it intensely private. "I'm not going to let it become anything else but an inside thing; no one is going to know but you."

"And how long do you think that's going to last? You want them to be, but your body and mind aren't separate. What's happened is it's wearing you out, and that's not what you want, is it?" His tone became gentle again. "You're going to be angry at yourself for spilling your guts to me, but if you think it makes you look bad, well, if you really _were_ bad, you could have stopped me, or you wouldn't have taught me to think for myself in the first place.

"And what could be so bad about other people knowing? Business rivals aren't the whole world." Mokuba paused, drew in a breath slowly. "What if you actually started talking to them again, so it'd be easier without me around?"

"Them". If Mokuba had not existed, they would have been gone from his life forever. "I can't just drop in out of the blue. We've hardly even seen each other, and when we did, it always led to some kind of argument. That's going to make it look worse than it might have been. Time's taken care of this for me, even if I wanted it to suddenly change. It's been too long."

Mokuba leaned forward. "That's not true. If you really wanted to do it, you wouldn't care about time or protocol or anything like that. If it were any other thing, you'd tell yourself to just suck it up and go with it. But if it's not them, and I'm gone, who's it going to be? My old friends don't know you like they do. You have a ready-made circle of friends, all your own age. The grudges are what's really outdated. They never looked at it your way, remember?"

Only one person in the world could make him feel stung like that. He had not wanted to confront Yugi again, and the pain of the earlier loss had long since been eradicated. But when they were mentioned it came alive, threatening to reduce him to a posturing adolescent, a blazing hatred completely out of proportion to what they had done. Meanwhile, he had not stopped Mokuba from interacting with them, and treated his brother's other friends with unfeigned courtesy.

But that had been when Mokuba was never gone for more than a week or two, and usually less. Sooner or later he'd start screwing up, his anger becoming more and more impotent. He would waste himself, lose himself as he almost had before. And all because of a card game and being questioned about his attitude when he as a kid.

This he had told himself before, but now it finally seemed to hit him. "All right. I'll do it."

"You're just going to jump into it."

"You have too much to lose if we can't deal with the change. You did your part, and I was driving myself insane trying to see a way to do mine, so I'll listen to you. You're better at this than I am."

"Wow. I hope you can exercise that kind of grace in a public setting."

Kaiba laughed softly and without humour. The talk of old roles had merit, but their relationship had changed. Mokuba had become more assertive and, paradoxically, more overtly solicitous in dealing with him. The almost parental criticism he had exercised right now wasn't new.

"But if you do it just to make me happy, it'll be mechanical, ugly. You have to _want_ it, too, and not just for your own ends. Be graceful, be attentive, try to see other people like you do me. I can't really describe it any other way, but you've got to be organic about it, you know. Not like you'd approach a computer. There're rules, but there's also intuition and things like that."

Kaiba closed his eyes and allowed himself a smile. "I don't keep employees and raise a brother without picking up a few things about human interaction."

"I know. But you still see these guys as your enemies."

"That's...an exaggeration."

"Well, I want you to go into it with a little hope."

"Of course I would."

"Perfect." Mokuba grinned. "But you don't have to rush in right away. We'll have a few days, and you'll do it when you're ready, okay?"

"Yes." There would be no chance of it being like before, when Mokuba had had trouble making friends and preferred his company anyway. He would call up some of his high school friends, go out on the town.

Mokuba began to chat with him as if no stone had been moved, about his school friends and both of their personal projects, and various kinds of entertainment and events. After chess they played several other games, Kaiba always winning, and then went to dinner, which was their peace: Beef fillet with foise gras sauce, with liberal amounts of rice and vegetables for the main course, and Mokuba's favourite, chocolate parfait, for dessert.

They sat opposite each other at one end of the dining table instead of using the entire length. Mokuba commented much on how superior the food was compared to the life he lived elsewhere, making more jokes about how it was almost convincing him to stay. It was good that Mokuba's commitment to his personal ideals was stronger than the lure of an easy life.


	3. Chapter 2

**Childhood's End**

**Chapter 2**

Kaiba woke early and left for work the next morning, as Mokuba knew he had to. Currently he took his own car more often than the chauffeured limousine, and wore a plain navy blue suit instead of wild outfits of yesteryear.

Arriving at Domino's KaibaCorp headquarters, he exchanged perfunctory greetings with the receptionist and the employees he happened to come across on his march to the office, and then lost himself in his work, paying little attention to the progress of the sun or the needs of his stomach. At one point Kaiba touched ground to make a phone call.

"Turtle Game Shop, how can I help you?"

"Yugi." Thankfully it wasn't his grandfather; that might have been even more awkward.

"K-Kaiba?" Kaiba imagined a clatter as the receiver was dropped, but there was only silence on the other side. A few seconds of this passed before Yugi said, "Um, hi. Want do you want? Sorry, it's just a little weird."

"Yugi..." How was he to put this?

"Yes?"

"Yugi, whenever you have a free day, whenever _I_ have a free day, I'm going to come over to your house and talk about it."

"About what?"

That wasn't what he _meant_ to say. "Things."

"Uh...sure. Hey, is Mokuba in town yet?"

"He arrived last night. But I'm going to meet you alone, Yugi. You and Mokuba will get together some other time."

"Oh, really?" Inexplicably, Yugi seemed to perk up. "Well, I know you're busy, and we're still doing pretty good business here. It should probably be the evening, then. Let me think..."

They dickered for a few moments before settling on a time. After the call was done, Kaiba had to make an effort not to slam the receiver into the cradle.

In the evening he found Mokuba making sketches in the conservatory. Before Kaiba could say anything, Mokuba asked him about it. When he told his brother what he had done, Mokuba looked astonished.

"You'll be going right to the shop?"

"An extra bit of challenge."

"Do you want me to come?"

He was _not_ to resent Mokuba's request. "No. I should face Yugi on my own."

"Well, I guess that's it then."

"Is it?"

"It certainly _feels_ like it is," said Mokuba with a shrug. "For now, anyway." He smiled, warming Kaiba and making him feel relieved. But things seemed cloudy, distant, even though Yugi wasn't the person that he'd have the most trouble dealing with.

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The chosen Sunday came bright and warm, carrying with it the promise of summer. Kaiba wore a plain white dress shirt, black slacks and polished brown shoes. An enamelled Blue-Eyes pin, an old present from Mokuba, was pinned to the collar, and of course there was the locket, worn inside his shirt.

Yugi had agreed to meet him in the early evening, just after the shop closed. Despite knowing that Solomon Mutou hadn't retired, Kaiba was briefly startled to see Yugi's grandfather glaring at him through the door. After turning the sign to "Closed", Solomon opened the door and let Kaiba in, before shuffling aside, his footsteps going upstairs to the family's living quarters. The old man had lost some weight.

Yugi didn't look up when Kaiba came in, being absorbed in cleaning out the cash register. Kaiba cleared his throat, trying to keep the rudeness of the sound in check. Yugi smiled and slammed the register door before quickly and roughly trying to improve his workspace.

"Hi, Kaiba. Sorry, I'll be with you in a minute. I'm just cleaning up here."

"It's fine." He heard someone moving around upstairs. It was probably Solomon pacing and muttering to himself. "So where do you want to go?"

"Oh, well...we'll just go upstairs to my room. Is that okay with you?"

Yugi seemed nervous, as of course he would be. But it passed Kaiba's mind, as he heard footsteps descending the stairs and tensed. "It's fine."

"Well, brace yourself, buddy, because you've got somebody else along for the ride."

Kaiba couldn't stop his back from stiffening, or the noisy exhalation from his nostrils. His head turned slowly to lock his gaze on Joey as he sauntered into the main room, already knowing his changed appearance from the few glimpses had over the years. His hair was different, cut shorter in the back with two long strands down the front on either side. He liked muscle shirts or t-shirts, and heavy jackets, the latter of which he was now without. The recently omnipresent cigarette was missing from his mouth, and there was a bandage on one cheek.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"Hey, is that any kind of way to greet an old friend? Come on, man." He was grinning, infuriatingly impervious to what it meant. Was he mocking him or just dense?

He had to deal with surprises. But he had expected _Yugi_. Wheeler--_Joey_ was a completely different man to deal with. Kaiba turned back to watch Yugi get out from behind the counter, as if hoping to catch more surprises. Instead, Yugi only got out from behind the counter. He wore old jeans and a grey t-shirt with a Dark Magician on it, the print almost destroyed by years of washing. The polished cartouche was still around his neck.

"Sorry, Kaiba, but I invited him. It had to be both of us."

Kaiba looked at Joey, who shrugged. Kaiba growled, "Well. That's obvious to anyone, isn't it?"

Yugi frowned. "You don't sound like you believe it."

"Well it _does_ seem a little ridiculous. We come out on top in some tournaments when we were kids, and suddenly we're bound for life?"

Joey darted into Kaiba's field of vision. "No, it's 'cause we were the ones you always blew up at, get it?" He leaned against the counter. "You only made this move 'cause Mokuba's gone. All your life you had somebody who was always there for you, would do anything you want. Who needed anybody else when you had that, am I right? And now you're flounderin' without that. Hey, don't look at me like that. I may be a guy, but I've got a knack for this stuff, and you're pretty east to figure out anyway, Kaiba."

"So, do you expect a medal?"

"Well, I was going to expect you to stop being a sarcastic jerk, but I guess not all kids grow up."

"Hmph."

"Joey, do you have to be so cynical?"

Joey looked at Yugi, and his expression softened, but, "He probably would have gone on hating us if Mokuba had stuck around. We ain't his medicine."

"I can see why you might think that, but it wouldn't hurt to be at least a little optimistic." Yugi walked closer to Kaiba, touching the cartouche without looking at it.

"Okay, man, look, er, let's not get off track here, okay?" He sighed. "Sorry I came on like that, but, er, what I'm really sayin' is that it's gotta be us 'cause we're the only people you could work up any strong feelings about who ain't your enemies...no matter how you thought of us, we weren't that. Make me sorry, okay?"

Yugi's expression then gained a hauntingly familiar seriousness, but he said nothing.

"How's your relationship with Mokuba these days anyway? Still the stuff what dreams are made of?"

"Don't make fun of that, Wh--Joey."

"You were about to call me 'Wheeler' again, weren't you? Jeez, are you a time capsule or what? And it's a real question, by the way."

"It's good enough. At first we actually...fought over what he wanted to do."

"Wanted him to stick around as KaibaCorp's future head honcho, huh?"

"_No_!" His vehemence was obviously absurd, but could not stop. "I always gave him that choice. Legacies, dynasties...that nonsense is for the Middle Ages!"

"But you would've liked it better, wouldn't ya?"

"And you call _me_ set in my ways. If I'd have known you had come here just to call me possessive, I never would have set foot inside this store!"

Yugi stepped quickly between them, before glaring up at Kaiba. "Kaiba, we're just _talking_! Calm down!"

Joey shrugged. "Look, I'm not real big on the idea of you just coming in here after you kept swearing you'd never have anything to do with us again. But I don't hate you 'cause of some teenage squabblin', so I'm not going to turn you away. Sometimes people just need a little shove in the right direction." Smirking and crossing his arms, he added, "Though in your case, you might need a good one in the butt with a steel boot." He straightened up, then unzipped a pocket inside his jacket, drawing out something and tossing it to Kaiba "Here."

The catch was easy. It was a hard plastic holder, the kind that dealers sold individual cards in. Inside it was a rather battered Red-Eyes Black Dragon card.

"Turn it over," Joey said.

There were two cards in it, back to back. The other one was the Time Wizard. Its foil glinted in the overhead lights, and Kaiba gave it only a glance before sending it back to Joey with a flick of his wrist.

"Now you see that? I don't play, but I just keep this little thing on me, for luck. And to remind me of what I got. It's the same with you: just because things change don't mean they're destroyed."

"Yeah? And I suppose you'd be very eager to show this to your new friends."

Joey thrust the holder back into his pocket. "Hey, they ain't like that, Kaiba. Just 'cause I do what guys my age normally do, I'm not some..._thug_. You really gotta get over that complex."

"Kaiba, we're talking about you, not Joey. And he's right. I'm--"

"Don't you understand yet? I know all this. I _know_ that I should be accepting Mokuba's change, that he's a man now, that he has something that he wants to do. I know all that, but it _never works_, and repeating banal platitudes isn't going to help."

Joey: "Well, maybe it won't seem so cliché when you got somebody to share it with. Even if we do end up just yelling at each other, you're liable to get even more crazy if you got no one but yourself around and all those angry thoughts running through your head."

"Kaiba, you can't give all of your heart to just one person. It's too much to give, and maybe to take. Even for you two. You know what I think it is? That you still live in the same world that we used to, where everything had a lot of...grandness. Eternal relationships, epic battles; it's a bigger version of what everyone feels when they're a kid. But you get older, and things do change; maybe in a way they get a little duller, the people you love aren't by your side forever, but it doesn't change what you feel about them."

Kaiba listened to the blood pounding in his head, trying to find the right response to such preaching. Part of him wanted to shout at them, the other to discuss with them. The pause now was getting awkward, but Kaiba couldn't decide yet.

Joey said, "Hey. Why'd you space out on us like that? Come on, you ain't the broody type."

"No. I'm not, am I?"

"I, uh, I think we should take a break," said Joey. "I got paid today, how's Burger Palooza sound?"

Yugi said sure; Kaiba made a face, but remained quiet. One encounter with that sludge wouldn't hurt him too much. "I want my brother to come with us."

"'Course. I miss the little guy."

Mokuba was older than Joey had been when they had first met, he would always be "the little one" to them, and now wasn't the time to make a fuss about it. InsTéad he took his cell phone from his pocket and tapped in the number for the mansion, walking closer to the exit as he did so.

"Mokuba?"

"Oh, hi Seto! How are things going?"

"Joey's here. Yugi invited him."

"Oh..."

"But things are all right here."

"So why'd you call?"

"We're going out for food, and I'd like you to come along."

"Sure. I'll watch for you. 'Bye, Seto."

"Mm. Goodbye, Mokuba." Kaiba pressed the button to terminate the call. "All right, let's go. We'll take my car."

Joey perked up. "Your limo?"

"My _car_. I drive alone now. Most of the time."

"Well, I guess things do change a little. How about trying a new haircut next, huh? Heh-heh."

"Well, if I do, it won't be one that makes me look like a close sibling." Kaiba turned to leave. He expected a sharp retort, maybe wanted it, but Joey instead clapped him on the shoulder and Kaiba heard his laugh, followed by Yugi's quieter one, which almost sounded forced. The slap hurt a bit; Joey had gained some muscle after becoming an adult.

It was harder to be silent when Yugi took shotgun, meaning that Mokuba couldn't sit there. But why was that important, anyway?

Mokuba ran eagerly down the mansion's huge front steps, and for a moment Kaiba saw him as much younger, ready to almost knock him over with a welcome-home hug, but it passed within an instant. He considered what Yugi had said. If it were true, part of that old grandeur might have been the younger Mokuba, always worshipful. He shouldn't be nostalgic for that.

"Hi, guys."

He heard Joey scooting over to make room. "Hey there, 'Mokie'. How's it going?"

Kaiba grimaced. Joey _knew_ he hated it when he used Kaiba's childhood nickname for Mokuba.

"Eh," Mokuba shrugged vocally. "I can't complain. Kind of scared about becoming a starving artist, though."

"Aw, don't worry. If you're strapped for cash, you can always count on Big Bro, am I right?"

Kaiba grunted.

"How are you and Kaiba doing?" asked Yugi, turning around to the back.

"We are...it's tough to get used to, you know?"

"And you were behind this, right?" Kaiba heard a sound that probably meant Joey was poking Mokuba playfully.

"Well, somebody has to watch out for you. Right, Seto?"

Kaiba opted to put the key in the ignition insTéad of answer. He had sharp hearing, and heard Joey ask Mokuba, _sotto voce_: "Is he really okay? I mean, he's been looking a little out of it."

"Seto's not exactly 'okay', but he's far from crazy, if that's what you mean." There was faint contempt in Mokuba's voice.

Silence passed for a few moments, until Yugi said, "Joey knows you'd never smother Mokuba, he just wanted to get you out of your shell." Then he added, "And that's what you were worried about, isn't it? That part of it might be true."

Kaiba gripped the steering wheel tighter, hunched his shoulders, and growled, "_Yes_".

Joey had started it; the comments at the end of their duel on KaibaCorp Island had awakened Mokuba to the problems that might be lurking within Kaiba, and then later, Kaiba's arguments with Joey had centred around each other's life choices and not their dueling prowess. _How can you go and think you can turn off all that bad attitude like a faucet,_ Joey had said. _People_ _don't work that way. One of these days it's going to flow down to Mokuba and you won't be able to stop it. So why not just quit right now? Let's bury the hatchet and be buddies, okay?_ Kaiba had always walked off angrily after some cutting remark.

"But you didn't. You could have, and you didn't. And that means you're a better person than you probably think you are, Kaiba. It means there's hope for everything."

There were several Burger Paloozas in Domino, and Kaiba was suddenly hit with a bizarre impulse.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Yes, there it was, the stupid thing. The cartoon hamburger could be seen idiotically waving its arms a fair distance before actual arrival. The dinner crowd would be gone by this time, which was good. He'd become something of an accepted sight in Domino, and when he was not displaying, they left him alone, except for the odd child requesting an autograph, which he had offered with a measure of pleasantness not dictated solely by his ego. Though Kaiba didn't want his own, he really did like children, at least the ones who weren't snot-nosed little brats. That had been his motivation for making Kaiba Lands, a truth he shared only with Mokuba.

But in public, when he was in a bad state, he never could get rid of the feeling that everyone was watching him. The clerk surely was, eyes bulging at the sight of a local celebrity standing before him, but the boy made no comment, as he had been trained to.

Kaiba ordered a salad with bits of mozzarella cheese and breaded chicken in it, while everyone else took the standard hamburger combination meal. He discarded the dressing immediately--liquid fat, that was all it was--and began to eat methodically and without pleasure.

"Yugi." The other boy had a dozy look.

"Hmm? What, Kaiba?"

"Téa used to work here, didn't she?"

"Y-yeah. Mokuba told you, right?"

"Of course."

"And you drove me right to this one. There's another you could have gone to."

"I did."

"Why?"

It seemed like Joey, and even Mokuba, were no longer there. "Because I wanted to."

"I think you're doing good."

"You realize that it's not going to be like this. I don't have much free time."

Joey: "We'll make time, just like you always did for your brother. Now how about we talk about something else besides you for a while, eh? I bet Mokuba's told you everything, but I'm thinking with you, it all just blends together."

Mokuba: "That's not true. He just remembered that Téa used to work here, remember?"

"I was just thinking that we need something to counteract the doom and gloom around here." He slurped his drink, then put one elbow on the table. His look was shrewd. "So what do you remember?"

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "I remember that Yugi's relationship with Téa didn't work out, but that he sometimes pines for her. I remember that Bakura was with Yugi for a short while, and _he_ had the same thing Yugi once did, and the same assumption that it was gone. I remember that Duke Devlin is very busy right now and doesn't have as much time for his friends as he'd like. I remember that Joey and Tristan both bounce from job to job and never went to college. And other things."

"And you didn't act on it, because you hated us. It was all in your head." Disgust was slithering into Joey's tone. "You acted like a big, whiny kid. How many people, when they play for fun, keep hating their opponents after they get off the court? For eight years, yet."

"Would you like to start dueling again, Kaiba?"

"I never stopped. Just taking down a few little kids who think they're going to be the next champion without any kind of effort. Doing it for fun's out of the question. Duel Monsters stopped being just a game to me a long time ago."

"We're gettin' off topic here," remarked Joey.

"No," said Yugi. He looked at Kaiba again. "How about it?"

"I'll see."

"Hey, what if, after we finish up here, I take you out for something a little stronger? I promise I won't take you to somewhere that's _too_ seedy."

"I don't drink." Everything was losing its focus, becoming dimmed at the edges. He should leave them and talk to Mokuba about what he'd seen, what he'd felt.

"Come on, you're a big boy now. How do you know unless you try it?"

"You could say the same thing about jumping off a building."

"Jeez, you're so melodramatic."

"If Kaiba doesn't want to, don't force him."

"Yeah, okay, Yugi."

"But you'll go for the company, won't you, Seto?"

"What about you, Kiddo?"

"Not till my birthday."

"Suit yourself." Joey picked up his hamburger and took a big bite out of it. Everyone else began to eat again, and Kaiba decided to join in. It would be a strain to go with them, but he couldn't turn away. He wished that Mokuba could come.

Joey had spoken truly; the place he took them to was clean and well-lit, and in a moderately respectable part of town. He had spring water, but didn't touch it, listening to Yugi and Joey talk about things he'd already known but had never really thought about, highlights from the past. The amount of change they had all gone through was staggering, yet they seemed the same in so many ways. Kaiba scowled and gripped his icy glass, not caring about the cold. He had blustered about accepting change and always staying one step ahead, but he had stagnated while they all had moved on.

They hadn't heard from the Ishtars for several years, and Yugi repeated that it was an ugly truth: the former Tombkeepers had never seen Yugi as just a vessel, but once their duty had been discharged, the thread holding them to the Yugi Gang had quickly frayed, and, even discharged of their duty, they were out of place in the modern world and would strive to make their own home in the place they knew best.

Joey and Mai were in their on-again stage now, but of course neither of them were the settling-down type, even after Mai had "found herself" after touring the world for years. Bakura had made a good literature professor, and Kaiba wondered idly if Yugi still had feelings for the silver-haired boy. Probably just as a friend, though he didn't know how _that_ kind of love worked. Kaiba didn't even know whether he'd want a man or a woman.

Duke had been very successful, but didn't around to Domino as much as he used to. Téa's story was much like Mokuba's: struggling in a profession the world didn't recognize as worthy of riches unless you were terribly good or terribly rich, but she had starred in some minor productions and still continued with her education.

It was probably a depressing tally; their little group was together, more than the clichés of adult life would have lead one to expect. But they were not all in one place, they could not all get together and chat any time they wanted, and they could be drifting apart with the slowness of continents. Yet still they believed themselves inseparable. They had had accepted change so why shouldn't he? It was so ridiculous.

Their conversation went to more immediate things, the latest jokes and entertainment. Joey became increasingly giddy, suddenly stopping in the conversation to make stupid jokes and increasingly disjointed comments. He was far ahead of Yugi in that, who didn't drink much to begin with.

Kaiba watched with some disdain. It wasn't the old disdain, but that of someone proud to be austere looking on the indulgences of someone he had disrespected to begin with. His vices were never so base.

Looking at the clock, he and saw that several hours had passed; it was almost midnight. A young night for him, but he pushed up off the couch and brought his hands together to get the attention of Joey, who grunted in response.

"Let's get you home before you pass out, Wheeler."

"Anything you say, Dragon Boy. Heh, Dragon Boy. Like a superhero. Like Kaibaman. Kaibaman and Mokey Mokey. You remember that card, right, Kaiba?" Joey snorted laughter, but he didn't stumble as he got up, and walked in a straight line. "Ya know, this is a pretty short night for me. I think next time I'm gonna get daring and stay up past my bedtime."

Joey's apartment was closer, so they drove him there first. He waved them off happily and Kaiba drove off while Joey was still fumbling in his pocket for keys.

"He might go out later," said Yugi. "I know how he is."

"Mm."

"So do you think you'll come back?"

Kaiba sniffed. "I told you, that I would, didn't I? But I'm not going to duel you."

"You also said you wouldn't make friends."

"Well, then, we'll see," Kaiba adjusted his rearview mirror even though he didn't need to. He could remember when Duel Monsters had been purely sentimental to him, but that had been so long ago, and there was too much else to take care of first.

After the car started, Yugi said, "I'm not trying to convert you. I just want to understand you." He paused, and Kaiba in spite of himself hoped it would be over. "You know why I think you can't let us go? Because we were the only people your age that you actually knew; after that and before that there was nobody, or at least that's what I got from Mokuba's stories. We challenged you, not just in the game, but in...your image of yourself, I guess. I'm not saying we were out to save you or anything; sometimes it _felt_ that way, but we decided that you had to live your own life. If that was what you wanted, I couldn't stop you. But now that you're back, I'd have to say I'm glad."

Without intending to, his one-time rival might have put his finger on it. He'd tried hard not to indoctrinate his brother with his own misanthropy, always knowing that Mokuba wanted to see the world outside, but his forming of outward bonds had occurred only at the end of the dueling saga, when he'd begun interacting more with the Yugi Gang. As if they'd given him something he could not!

Something else occurred to him; he'd better nip that in the bud. "I'm not going to be your substitute Joey, here."

"Whoever said that? I accept what he's like now. A few differences in interests doesn't change what we are. I'm not going to be out saving the world with card games anymore, but I'm me anyway."

They said nothing for the rest of the drive, and when they stopped Kaiba reminded himself to wait until Yugi had found his key and gotten inside before driving off.

Arriving home, Kaiba realized he felt physically tired, as if he'd done an entire week's exercise regime in one day, and he sat in the car for several minutes before opening the door and walking to the mansion.

Mokuba was standing in the foyer in his day clothes, without any sign of something to fill the time. How long had he been standing there?

"How did it go?"

Why did Mokuba sound so small, so young?

"We'll see." No, that wasn't the right thing to say. What was the truth but reassuring?

"Well, then, how do you feel about your chances? Do you think you _like_ them?"

"There's a long road ahead before I reach that. You know that, Mokuba."

"Don't be such a pessimist. You didn't leave in a huff, did you?"

Kaiba made a tight smile. He could feel a little bit of resistance deep inside himself, small and cold and squirming. Nothing could be solved after a single night. But it hadn't felt completely bad and strange. "No."

"And that's better than anything else you've done with them. I'm sorry, Seto. I should have tried harder when I was still at home."

"You did try, Mokuba. And you succeeded. You always gave me strength and helped me see how far I'd strayed."

Mokuba smirked "Maybe you should also thank Joey and Yugi for that."

He remembered Joey's words from that day. "I'd prefer not to."

"Not _yet_ you mean."

"I...hn."

Did adults always have to lose the intense passions and dreams of adolescence in a trade-off for stability and flexibility? It was obvious Mokuba would always be there, but why couldn't he believe it totally?

"Time capsule" Joey had called him.

Looking at Mokuba again, Kaiba reminded himself that his brother shared his dedication and endurance, and was mature despite his hobbies and daydreams, but not meant for sitting behind a desk, typing and delegating. They were different people, so close together, but different people.

"What about the stuff Joey's into? Will you ever like that?"

Kaiba snorted.

"Not that extent, I guess. But I could tell you about how to do it a good way. Yugi's nice, it'll be easier for you to get to like him, but with Joey...um, well..."

"I know, I know."

"Tired, huh? Being nice to other people must have taken a lot out of you."

"That's not funny, Mokuba."

"No, it's not. Sorry."

"Things are going to change. I'll make sure of it."

"Seto..."

"All right, all right. I surprised myself. I kept myself under control. It felt weird, but I could do it again. And I suppose that'd be as good as one could hope for, with the way things have been."

"Or the way you made things," said Mokuba, not unkindly. "I always tried to tell them that you were better than that, but..."

But he had never been around to back it up. _All _they remembered was what he had left them with. Kaiba grimaced, following Mokuba up the huge carpeted stairs, comforted by being inside again.

"And then you'll see; things will get better; you'll grow up, move on, other things. I mean, better late than never, right?"

Kaiba wanted to grunt, but did not. At the top, they paused and faced each other.

"Well, good night, Big Brother."

"Good night, Mokuba. Thank you."

Mokuba chuckled, smiled, and hugged Kaiba tightly. When he released him, he said the old line, "Somebody needs to rescue _you_ for a change." Kaiba just stood still and watched his brother go in the direction of his old room, until the door closed and Kaiba turned away.


	4. Chapter 3

**Childhood's End**

**Chapter 3**

He pushed forward with all his strength, snarling. A blast from his hands at this close a range would be foolish, and likely his enemy knew that, too. But now there was the thick, bony tail slithering in to cut at his legs. Suddenly he relaxed his grip, bringing up his own tail as the enemy tumbled forward, clawed feet scrabbling in the grass. His tail connected neatly with the enemy's jaw and sent him down.

His opponent looked up at him, huge red eyes over the claw-shaped horn jutting from his forehead, all of it partially covered by jagged blonde bangs. "Best two out of three?"

"You know it doesn't work that way. Each battle is a new one."

"Aw." Yugi got up, knowing Kaiba wouldn't strike without warning, not when they were talking. "We don't exactly have a referee here."

Kaiba put his hand on one hip and scoffed.

"Oh, well, it's fun anyway."

Fun? "Then do you want more? A different body?"

Yugi looked himself over. It was still surprising to think that he'd chose an anthropomorphized Curse of Dragon over a Dark Magician. When asked, Yugi had only said, "It wouldn't be right". Now he answered, "No more than you'd want to change yours."

Kaiba was a humanoid Blue-Eyes, his own hair and shape, but with shining skin, finned ears, clawed hands and feet, a tail and wings, glass-bottle blue eyes. He wore a black body glove with breastplate, greaves, and studded belt and forearm guards.

The thought of riding his beloved monster as if it was a horse, generating his voice from it...both had seemed ridiculous, but no virtual avatar could substitute for the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. He had moulded this out of a model used for another game, with design tips from Mokuba. "Fine, then."

"We'll try something different. Against a real enemy this time?"

"Don't you have to be back in an hour?"

Yugi shrugged, adjusted his shoulder guard. "Don't you like making the most of everything?"

Kaiba grinned. His tail flicked once, like a cat's.

For a household playground designed on the side, the AI mobs gave you the feeling of a good workout. The exhilaration hadn't gone away yet, the feeling of challenge but with complete power. His face was humanlike, too flat for biting, but he knew that he growled, sometimes.

At last all lay dead around them. Immune to Industrial Illusion's anti-violence mandates, they were a poor sight. "Time," Kaiba commanded, and the numbers appeared digital red in the sky. Without looking at Yugi, he made the world go to black.

He could feel the old power in him for a while after shutdown, like the phantom sensations of the virtual limbs that had no real-life analogue. Both would fade soon.

Yugi took off his helmet. Two of the main parts of his hair were still plastered down, slowly springing up to match the others as he talked. "So, have you talked to Joey yet?"

"I said that I would, didn't I? It's no big deal."

"You made it into one, remember? And you have to understand that it's too early in this for you to start brushing off anything, okay? We want you to succeed, but..."

"But you're not under contract, I get it. I was planning to see him tomorrow anyway."

"That's good. Do you think that you'd like to see some of the others, before Mokuba goes? It'll make it easier to move on to strangers."

"I know, I know. I saw Tristan that night, too."

"What about Bakura? He already knows, and so does everyone else. I heard Mai's back in town, so if you go to see Joey you might run into her." Yugi looked at the helmet in his hands. "So...same time next week?"

"If nothing comes up."

"Fair enough. And of course you'll let me know how it went, right?"

"Hmph. Of course I will."

Yugi had driven his own car to the mansion, and now Kaiba stood on the step and watched him go. In Battle City, he had lived in a state of constant twitching rage and lustful anticipation; it had caused him problems, it was good to put that behind him, but there had been a power there, and nothing but these virtual battles had even come close to matching it.

It made him twitch a little, to think that The King of Games (a hollow title when he hadn't backed it up with any major tournament participation or even appearances) had seen him in a monstrous virtual body. Had seen him in casual clothes, including the Duel Monsters t-shirt he was now wearing. Had seen his vulnerability. The rival who saw him as a friend, who had jumped at the chance to be let back into his life, devoid of Joey's cynicism.

But hadn't that cynicism collapsed easily? He couldn't let himself be fooled; Joey was innocent, at least on this. He knew Joey's address, and his number, and his shifts, when to call on him. It wasn't about what he wanted, it was what he needed, and there would be no more putting it off.

Kaiba growled to himself and went back inside, upstairs to his study. Apparently guilt was a new feeling that was taking a while to get used to. _Shut up. Just shut up. Take care of it when you can, and do everything possible to get it right._

-----------------------------------------------------------

Joey had a Saturday free. His apartment was in the bad end of Domino, only a few blocks from where he'd lived with his father. Mokuba had told him Joey's story; the parallels were obvious, but of no consequence.

Kaiba had thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked proudly, looking straight ahead, deliberately avoiding the sight of rundown apartment blocks broken by the occasional store. It wasn't a class difference that made him avert his eyes: instead he knew that many of these people lived only for the next day; no pride, no creativity, no great goals. And sometimes it wasn't their fault at all.

He pressed the call button, clenching his other hand into a fist.

Joey's voice came through, torn by static. "Yeah?"

"It's me."

"Hey, Kaiba! Come on up!"

_Moron._ He walked up the stairs, glad that the building was deserted.

Joey met him at the door in socks, jeans, and a t-shirt. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth, and Kaiba made no secret of his disgust.

"What, this thing? Well, better luck next time, eh?"

"Hmph." Kaiba took off his shoes and slid into the house slippers by the door. There was also a pair of pumps there. Oh. Where was she?

"Hey...How are those new games going? Yugi told me you beat him a couple times. How's it finally feel?"

He scowled. "Well, that depends; what does nothing feel like?"

"Nothing? Aw, come on. _You_?"

"Drop it." Kaiba pushed past Joey and went deeper into the apartment. "It wasn't Duel Monsters and it wasn't for competition."

Joey was probably grinning as he followed him, but Kaiba didn't look back to check. "You, the Grudge Man?"

There was a faint stink coming from somewhere. Things had been shoved and stacked into corners to create the illusion of cleanliness, and Kaiba asked himself again what he was doing there. It was so pathetic that enemies and strangers had to be his only lifeline to human contact.

He took another step forward. He could see the kitchen now, and there she was. She turned around, draping one arm over the chair's back.

"Well, hello there, Hon. Haven't seen you in a while."

Mai wore a dark red shirt and black jeans, with silvery earrings and a matching bracelet, the curls of her blonde hair somehow less elaborate now.

"Well, aren't you going to say hello? Joey told me about the 'new you', and I'm curious to see it for myself.

"Mai." There was no need to ask what Mai was doing there. She'd been in town for weeks. Kaiba _knew_ what she was doing there.

"You're not here just to apologize and walk out, are you? You know we'd love to have you stay around."

"Yeah. C'mon, relax, Kaiba."

Turning to face Joey again, he said, "Fine, I'll stay. But I'm not going on any more of your little stampedes, Wheeler."

Joey waved his hand dismissively. "Okay, okay, okay. It wasn't your thing, and I shouldn't have pestered you so much. But that's just the way guys like me act, you know. We mess around with each other, make fun of each other. I thought it would make a man outta ya."

"I'm _already_ a man, Wheeler." He had to remember to call him by his first name.

"Well, you sure don't act like one."

"Is this what you do to Yugi, too? Get your little pack of new friends to harass and humiliate him?"

"Y-you--Jeez, you're blowing this completely out of proportion! All we did was take you for a boys' night out, and you get sulky. Stop being such a trauma queen. You know, nobody's impressed with your tough act."

"He's right, you know," said Mai from behind him.

_What do you know? You barely know me!_

She continued regardless of his glare. "Admit it, Kaiba: who's actually been out, seen the world, has got more friends?"

"I am not going to be like _you_."

Joey began to talk, making Kaiba look at him again. "Eh, you don't have to be. Just try to play along."

"Hey." Mai took his shoulder, and Kaiba twisted away, in the process now facing her again. "Don't. Touch. _Me_."

She frowned. "Listen, you're just going to have to get used to this if you want to meet new people. Maybe you were never taught this, but life isn't just about people doing what you want."

"Whoever said I wanted things to be like that?"

"Maybe not, but till now the only person you interacted with is one who would follow you no matter what you did."

"_Don't_ talk about Mokuba that way. I taught him to think for himself, and he..." What? How much did Mai know? Kaiba turned to stare at Joey, wondering how much he had told, and what Mai thought of him now.

"Yeah, I know, it's tough." Mai sounded sympathetic, and she patted him on the shoulder. Kaiba was careful not to react again. "And that's why...," she smiled, winked, making Kaiba scowl. "...It's going to be my turn to talk to you."

"What?" He ought to be accepting. Grateful. There was no steel wall of the past between himself and her. But he was annoyed instead, and looked at Joey accusingly.

But he actually looked apologetic. "Uh...we didn't try to spring this on you, honest. If you don't wanna do it, that's fine with us."

"Of course I'm going to do it. You think I'm afraid? I need to speak to others besides you and Yugi."

Mai added, "And you haven't been around women much, have you?"

"We've got enough barriers here without dwelling on artificial ones."

Mai only rolled her eyes.

Joey said, "So this means you're coming back, right?"

Kaiba was still looking at Mai. "What do you mean, 'coming back'?"

"Back then I knew that trying to talk to you would be like walking into a tiger cage, and you did make me pretty mad, so I kinda gave up on you a long time ago. I guess...I'm just worried that it'll slip. Things'll go back to the way they used to be."

"Well, _I'm_ not fragile. I came here because I wanted to. And...I...o-overreacted. Your friends were just doing some...h-harmless teasing. Yes." Every word felt like a tooth pulled. "So what is it that you want to do? And I'm talking to both of you."

"Let's go out," Kaiba sucked in his breath as Mai brazenly linked her arm in his. It was only a friendly gesture, but it made him feel strange. "Don't worry; you're not likely to get mugged or anything out there."

"Three of us?"

"No, I want to talk to Kaiba alone."

"Sure, knock yourselves out."

Kaiba didn't want to say anything. This was foreign territory, but he grudgingly thought that while Joey was irritating, possessive he was not. Besides, he wouldn't want someone like Mai anyway.

They were silent for several minutes as they walked, then Mai said, "You've hardly changed." She paused. "I know what it's like; I thought I wanted it."

"Wanted what?"

"For things to stay the same. Why is it hard for you to admit that you do too? To people besides your brother, I mean."

"We gain strength and knowledge every day; why would I want to get rid of that?"

"But of course there's more. There always is. You still feel it. You're nuts for independence, but you wanted to be the one to provide for him, protect him. You don't want to have to go out and find others. It's okay to admit that. Following through with it is not okay."

"Mm."

"With me it was just being alone, not losing everything and having to make a new life. But it was the same: I didn't trust people, put on that tough act, and thought I had everything under control. It took meeting them to show me different."

The Magic Friendship Brigade. But Mai hadn't made a victim of herself, and had never crawled in repentance, either.

"So I ran around the world trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going. I didn't want to settle down, and I still don't, but I want to have a direction. Just partying off of tournament money didn't seem like enough, and it's a good thing I decided to stop, because it's harder to do that these days."

"Do you still play?"

She nodded. "Joey can't be convinced, poor guy, but I play with Yugi sometimes. And in tournaments; I saw you, once or twice. I used to wonder how you had so many people cheering your name, but it was easier to understand, seeing you in action. You had this strange sort of charisma, and I could believe that you wanted to give them a good show, and you liked giving all that money to charity."

"I'm flattered," he muttered.

"_I'm_ serious. I guess I'm just like Joey in that; being cynical one minute and trusting you the next." She ran her hand through her hair.

What could he ask in this situation? "How long do you plan on staying?"

"I don't know. However things go, they go. But I'm not about to end up on the other side of the world again. What about you, what are you doing?"

"Besides trying to get some semblance of social skills? Helping with new game development. Another standard RPG mess, but I have some other uses for it."

"Like what?"

He explained the little games with Yugi.

"I'm not surprised," she said, when he also pointed out to her that every Duel Monsters RPG had tanked, so that the companies stopped trying.

"Neither was I. The structures were too different, and the story couldn't be separated from the game, even with stuff like Gearfried." It was more about 20/20 hindsight, but Mai didn't need to know that.

"Do you think I could try it out?"

"...Sure."

She chuckled. "And maybe, just maybe, I could get to duel with the great Seto Kaiba, what do you think?"

"If you want."

"Just don't go easy on me."

"I don't take much stock in chivalry."

Mai laughed again.

For some reason he was annoyed. "It's true I don't have much experience with women, but I don't think it's so important to worry about it. I make it a personal policy not to get hung up on the differences between people."

"Which is another way of saying you just don't give a damn, right?"

They had gotten into the park. When they reached a bench she waved him to a seat.

Kaiba sat. "Look, I wasn't like that at work. I may not have been _nice_, but things weren't always that way."

Mokuba had known it, but the exposure to their past, how angry he'd been during the whole of the tournament, had lead his brother to declare that he was "always in a bad mood", even to agree with Yugi and say that "you're filled with hate".

It had shocked him then, and the memory still did, but he could admit that he had needed it, and even exaggerated by the heat of the moment, there had been some truth in it. "How could I be, when I had people working for me? Though it was a wonder that Roland hadn't quit after being assigned to be my primary help at tournaments."

"But you still don't like people, do you? Been burned by them too many times."

"What's your point?"

"I'm just saying that I know the feeling."

"It's not like it's an excuse."

"Well, you couldn't entirely help it. When these things happen, no one gets out without some kind of scars."

"...How much do you know about me?"

"Joey's told me some, via your brother. It's sad what happened to you, and it's only that you have to get over it, not feel like you were too weak to avoid getting hurt. Understand?"

It felt like he had said too much, to this near-stranger.

"And you're going to go out with Joey and his friends later, right?"

"Of course I am."

"And you're going to come back to the apartment and have dinner with us common folk. Right?"

"Fine."

Joey seemed genuinely surprised, but also pleased at the idea. Kaiba said that he had to go immediately after, and he really did. They had made him participate in the conversation, asking for his opinion on matters he cared and knew little about. There was some relief when it was over, but it felt less painful than it could have been.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Mokuba was home when Kaiba came back, sitting down to a late dinner. His brother been going out with his old friends a great deal, but probably stayed home more than he would have in a normal situation, watching Kaiba like a hawk. But tonight his brother just smiled at him. "Hi, Seto. How did it go?"

Sitting opposite his brother on one end of the table (they'd always preferred to do that rather than use up the whole length), Kaiba told him everything.

"And you admit that you were overreacting?"

"Yes."

Mokuba's expression was one of utter delight, and Kaiba half expected to be jumped on and hugged, though they were both too old for that, and certainly not across a table.

But his brother's expression turned serious. "You're a good person, Seto. They all know that, and that's why they're giving you a chance."

Kaiba rubbed his forehead, made a growling noise. "They're coming over to try that virtual thing we have in the basement. Whoever in the group wants to. Mai suggested it."

His brother's smile was back. "It'll be fun. Now come on, let's get you the night off and play games or something. It'll be just like old times."

"Sure, we can do that."

Mokuba stretched. "But I'll pass on the virtual stuff."

"Maybe you should give it another try."

"It's still a little weird to me."

Kaiba smirked. "What happened to the brother I raised?"

His brother laughed. "You don't get brought up by Seto Kaiba without gaining a healthy respect for technology, that's for sure. But it's not my thing."

That would have made it harder for him to take a job at KaibaCorp, but they hadn't discussed that. Maybe it was time. "Once, at least, try flying. And have you given any more thought to working at KaibaCorp after you graduate? Fears that they'd accuse me of nepotism would hardly be a barrier."

"I'm not that comfortable with tech, still. You know I respect it, but it's not my thing."

"There would be a place. Something in design?"

"Could be. I just have to figure it out. I know I'm a little old to be worrying about these things, but, I do. Some days I really don't have any idea where I'm going."

"We all have our off days. You'll find something." He'd always been more forgiving of Mokuba than himself.

"I won't leech off you."

"I know you won't. But asking for help is okay sometimes too, Mokuba."

"Hey, wasn't I the one telling you that?"

"Heh." He still felt the most comfortable around Mokuba. He didn't have to watch himself, make sure he didn't let old hatred boil to the surface, or that he was being too clumsy, screwing up. But he had to keep trying. This was for Mokuba's sake as much as his.

"I talked to my friends...you know, from school? They all think it's odd what you're doing, but then again, they've always been surprised by you."

"Yes." By proxy, Mokuba's friends were privilege to that sort of kindness, which had shocked them when they had only seen his dueling performances. Even Mokuba's newer friends, which Kaiba despised for prejudging his brother, would likely be accepted. "You know that those virtual...games, they give me back the power I used to have when I was a kid. It feels the same, but the circumstances are different."

"You don't need that anymore, Seto. You said so yourself."

"I was just mentioning it."

"I guess that's fair...as long as you're not regressing or anything. You aren't, are you?"

Kaiba snickered coldly. "No."

"That's my brother."

"Have you thought any more about what you might like to do for your birthday?"

"Not really. I'll probably just mess around like I always do. So who can you see next who's local? The only one is..."

"I know. I just don't trust him."

"Seto, you know that it wasn't _him_. And even if it was, he's been 'clean' for years."

He wasn't going to debate that with Mokuba. "Fine."

"He's smart and nice; you'll like him."

"He hurt you."

"But that wasn't--it's in the past. He's not like that. I promise."


	5. Chapter 4

**Childhood's End**

**Chapter 4**

Kaiba went to Bakura's apartment a week later after making some arrangements with him. It had to be a weekend, since he was busy at the university before that.

Bakura's apartment looked like no one lived there, or that they had moved out quickly. Everything was hidden away and it was neat as anything, in contrast to what Mokuba had said about academics, that, "None of their brains really go toward housekeeping."

As for Bakura, he was almost a walking stereotype. He was missing the thick glasses, but there was the sweater, and the long hair in a ponytail, and the books tucked under one arm, even a cat following him. The only thing that gave his old self away was the posters of fantasy art that were everywhere: wizards, dragons, fey, and heroes.

"Good morning." Bakura smiled. He looked utterly innocent and open, the picture of calm sweetness but with, Kaiba had to admit, an adult integrity.

"Good...morning."

Bakura frowned. "Do you trust me? I know how you feel on such matters, but I can assure you that I'm no danger to you. I haven't been for many years."

"I've already been 'assured' by others, thank you."

"I must admit, I haven't thought about you in years. We were never...we didn't interact much. So I don't really have anything to say on what you should be doing, or how well you are doing it."

"Well, isn't _that_ good?" But in spite of himself, Kaiba was relaxing. A bit. "The others are definitely picking up the slack for you."

"Oh, make no mistake, it is nice that you are trying, and I would enjoy making your acquaintance."

"Mm. Thanks."

"Well, come in. Sorry that I don't have much to do, it's just that I'm not used to entertaining guests. Please sit, and I'll bring out the tea."

"Neither am I," Kaiba said under his breath, but obeyed. After Bakura disappeared into the kitchen, a bobtail cat appeared, apparently coming to investigate Kaiba's ankles. He frowned at it, moved his foot slightly to try to get it away. Animals.

"Oh, that's Murasaki," said Bakura, just coming back. "She's rather affectionate for a cat. Do you like animals?"

"Only at the table, and even then in small amounts." It was probably why he liked insulting people by calling them animals, come to think of it.

"Ah-heh. Um." Bakura coughed. "So how are you doing, then?"

"Fine enough." Kaiba took the tea. There were rice crackers as well, but why eat unnecessarily? "How much did they tell you?"

Bakura gave a terse summation. Good, it meant he was all caught up.

"They're good sports about this entire thing, aren't they?"

"Mm." Kaiba looked up at the posters. "You're still interested in games?"

"Of course. But I try not to let it get around. You wouldn't know from my office that I like this sort of thing, though I have some replicas of classical prints."

"That's not how I operate. I don't hide myself."

"I know. But for someone of lower rank it's profitable. By the way, I found your latest offering quite enjoyable."

Should he tell him? Kaiba explained it. Not exactly a sales pitch.

"Oh, really? Yugi's told me about that. I think it could be fun. If you would let us."

"I've already invited Mai." Kaiba gripped the armrest with his free hand. Part of him was rebelling strenuously at the idea of Bakura entering his house.

"That's perfectly fine. Are you...normally a fan of role-playing games?"

"No." Usually he couldn't see the point. What good was pretending, without winning? This low-rent, personalized version of The Falsebound Kingdom wouldn't quite convert him. He just liked the flying and the power.

"Oh. That's too bad, because you know, they are my forte. I'm not quite the master of all games that you and Yugi are."

"You played Duel Monsters." All right, maybe he shouldn't be talking about that. It was already making his temperature rise.

"Oh, that, well, it was more...circumstantial." Bakura coughed. "It is all behind me now."

"I'll bet."

"I remember your scepticism. Please don't bring it into this. I am not going to hurt you."

"Do you want to come or not?"

"I'd love to. On what day?"

"I don't have anything scheduled yet. I'll let you know."

"Of course. Sure."

How did he ever get himself into these things? Inviting these strangers to a party when he'd--all right, he wanted to get things done, didn't he? Well, he should stop whining.

"Please, let me show you around. It's not much, but it's home." Bakura got up, and Kaiba followed him, having stifled his complaints for the moment.

And Bakura did remind him a bit of Mokuba, always with some strange dream in his head, but grounded besides. Bakura showed Kaiba his old set of Monster World miniatures and boards. Bakura never wanted, he said, to tell any strange stories himself, but was utterly fascinated with them.

"I can't relate," said Kaiba flatly. "All my reading was for business or to see what mental acuity I could get out of it."

"I would like, perhaps..." Bakura looked almost demure, not meeting Kaiba's gaze. "If I could not have a Duel Monster for my model, but the White Wizard. It means far more to me than any other."

Kaiba had thought of Spiritualist Jowgen as Bakura was explaining the figures, and had to bite back a comment about how what was probably a mage of goodness might be unsuitable for Bakura. "We've got mage models by the bucketful. It should be easy."

"Thank you; I'm sure you'd understand the desire. Come again, won't you? I'd like to help you in any way I can, and of course to be your friend."

"Yeah."

Mokuba wasn't there when he got home, but he'd be back at night. Kaiba worked and then went to bed, and at breakfast Mokuba asked him how the visit had gone.

"Fine. Bakura wants in on it, too, but he wants to be some kind of Monster World thing instead of a Duel Monster."

"I was thinking he'd pick Spiritualist Jowgen, but, yeah. I remember him always being so excited about those things. I even played with him a few times, remember?"

Kaiba nodded.

"I was thinking," Mokuba took more food, and Kaiba waited. "Why don't you make something bigger out of it? You could get enough of us, and we could make a party out of it. Maybe for your birthday. As long as..." Mokuba smirked. "You don't use it to do something nasty to them."

"Please."

Mokuba snickered. "And maybe...we can do it on your birthday, even fly Téa and Duke in. What do you think?"

"Fine."

"You don't seem too happy."

"It's new, that's all. I just have to get over it. I'm sorry."

"Then it's a go." Mokuba grinned, and Kaiba knew that it was.

-----------------------------------------------------------

He invited Mai, Bakura, and Joey to his house for having their features scanned and overseeing the development of their avatars; Téa and the others would have to be taken care of closer to the due date, and be advised to pick something simple.

Joey and Mai came together.

"What'd you _do_ to yourself?" was Joey's reaction when Kaiba showed his own avatar on the main screen.

Kaiba heard what was probably Mai elbowing Joey, followed by, "Come on. You don't think that the heroes have to be the pretty ones, do you?"

"Well, whoever said that I was a hero?" Kaiba didn't look up from the console, but smirked anyway.

"Then what are ya?" He felt Joey lean against the back of the chair.

"Me. So do you want this model or not?"

"Well, I dunno. It seems a little too demonic, and I'm not really into that stuff..."

"Stop leaning against the chair."

Joey obeyed. "Maybe just give me that armour and add some shoes to it, and keep me as is."

He went with Kaiba over possible armour designs, and for a weapon chose a morning star without a swinging chain.

Mai, of course, chose the Cyber Harpie with a Rose Whip. She wanted it to have her hair, not even coloured red, though not her earrings. It would walk on digitigrade legs. The original Harpie holograms had never been made to stand or walk, though Mokuba had suggested the right anatomy.

After they left, a maid came to tell him that he was wanted on the telephone. There was a woman's voice on the other end. "Kaiba?"

It took him a moment to get it: Téa Gardner. "Yes."

"It's me. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I was busy. I called to tell you that I can come down for this. Just for a couple days. How are you?"

"I'm doing fine."

"You know, when Yugi told me about what you were doing, I couldn't believe it. But I'd love to see how you're coming along."

_Yes, I bet you would. You self-righteous little--_ "Sure. Whenever you want." He told her where to wait for the KaibaCorp jet.

"I think that I want the Dark Magician Girl; that should be easy enough, right?"

"It will. But your features will need to be scanned, first."

"Okay. 'Bye."

Hm. That was fast. He'd expected her to talk more; did he make her nervous? Oh, well.

Duke didn't even have the decency to make a return call; he later left a message on the answering machine. His absence was to be expected anyway, since he ran a company and all. He'd even ended the message with, "You know how it is."

Serenity he didn't bother with. He'd heard that she was a total technophobe anyway.

And there was no one else. Mokuba likely wouldn't want to participate, and that was, in a way, good. He remembered how he'd wanted to see Mokuba after only a short while with Joey and Yugi...almost like psychological dependence. But then again, that left an uneven number if he wanted to divide them into teams. When he asked Mokuba, he was still surprised when he agreed.

"You're not making this thing for gamers, right? I mean, some of them haven't played in years."

"I'm not. The household systems don't have the space and I don't have the time to formulate something that needs major strategy."

"So then I'd fit right in."

"What monster are you going to be?"

"I'll think about it. And what I said earlier, I'm going back on that. I decided that it might help jumpstart me. You know, inspiration? Digital art's never been my strong point, and that's just not going to cut it these days."

Mokuba looked slightly apologetic. Maybe it was some old instinct, admonishing him for going against Kaiba's advice to be opportunistic and keep all options available. "So I take it you have some idea of what you want for _your_ birthday?"

"You've got full permission to spoil."

-----------------------------------------------------------

Mokuba turned twenty shortly afterwards. He had his own night out with school friends old and new, and Kaiba took him out to dinner on another night. He bought Mokuba a king's ransom of art supplies, essentials, and entertainment, and his brother had treated all of it with the same childlike glee.

Looking at him across the landfill of wrapping paper, his brother said, "We're both just big kids, aren't we? Some a little brattier than others."

Kaiba just frowned at the jibe.

Mokuba looked at him, smirked. "You know, I'm about to say something really, really cheesy, so don't get mad at me."

"What?"

"That the best present you've given me is stability. Knowing that you're making progress this fast, that's so great to know. I wondered sometimes if you saw the people who hurt us in every other person. Just trying to bring you down."

"As though _that's_ an excuse. Mokuba, it's your birthday. It's not like you need permission to talk about something else besides me."

"But I want to. I want to say that I'm sorry for not speaking up sooner. Those weekend visits, at Christmas. Heck, any time I wanted to I could have just driven over and asked, 'Are you really okay?' It wasn't how you taught me to be."

"You do now that any platitude I could use on you would go against everything I value." He meant it to would wry, but it came out slightly bitter.

His brother laughed. "How about 'get over it'? And I guess I shouldn't be caring about your relationship to a bunch of middle-aged men anyway. It's those people that you have to impress."

-----------------------------------------------------------

To pick up Téa, Kaiba didn't bring the Blue-Eyes White Jet, but one of the more standard machines. The dragon was too conspicuous, and this was only supposed to be a personal trip. By the time the pilot touched down in the field near the local Kaiba Land, she was already there, duffel bag in one hand, waving up at them from the runway. It took Mokuba to point her out, as he'd been staring out the other window.

Kaiba got up slowly, watching as his brother jumped down from the seat and ran to the exit, sneakers thumping across the floor, before waiting for the mobile stars to be rolled over.

The two of them were already hugging by the time Kaiba got down to the ground, Téa lifting Mokuba off his feet for a moment. "So you're an adult now, huh?"

"Chronologically."

She laughed, then looked past his brother at him. For a moment Kaiba expected to be tackled, but instead Téa just stuck out her free hand, which he shook without hesitation. Despite looking like she would float away in a strong wind, her grip was strong.

"Hi."

"Hello, Téa."

"Hey, thanks for letting me come out here. I mean, we were always hoping that you'd come back."

"I know."

"You look good."

I look the same, he thought. She had slightly changed, still having those same huge, oddly innocent-looking eyes, though now her brown hair was drawn up in a ponytail, and she moved with an odd grace that probably came from her years of dance training.

"So tell me more about what you're planning."


	6. Chapter 5

**Childhood's End**

**Chapter 5**

Kaiba probably looked like a general before his troops, the way he paced in front of the seven of them lined up in a row.

He had explained that the environment wasn't made for gamers and why. "Think of it as a real-life situation, but with less bugs. You don't win by picking up the right amount of tokens or getting your life renewed. You win by surviving. What matters is how smart you are, not how much you've played games. There are useful objects, but they're not just waiting for you.

"The winner is whichever group gets the Dragon's Treasure first. We split into two groups: Joey, Mai, and Téa are with me. Mokuba, Bakura, Tristan, and Yugi are the next group."

Kaiba grinned. It showed his fanged teeth, but he didn't care. This was what he lived for, not moping, not brooding, but _doing_. Lifting one leg, he drew half of his staff from the holder on his greave, and repeated the motion with his left side and connected the pieces. It was black metal with grips meant to be like rubber. Pressing a studded ring on each piece would case a straight blade to spring out one end.

Joey said, "Y'know, that smile's creeping everybody out."

"Shut it. Now, each group has two flyers, one warrior, and one magic-user." He nodded at Mokuba, who had chosen to be a humanoid Different Dimension Dragon. Tristan was a Gadget Soldier.

"We're going east, and you're going west. The paths follow a rough heart shape and converge at that mountain over there. Each route will have very different terrain. Any more questions?" He clasped his hands behind his back and stopped pacing.

No one said anything. "Fine then. Go."

They separated.

Their direction lead to a jungle, a cartoon fantasy of one, hung everywhere with thick vines and trees clustered too close together. Kaiba threw his cloak over his wings, a white one with a burgundy lining and a border of silvery studs, leaving the hood down.

"What's that for?" asked Joey. "It's not like no one's going to know who you are."

He was joking, but Kaiba rolled his eyes anyway. "There are _thorns _in there. If my wing membranes get ripped, I can't fly when we get to open ground." It would still be difficult when they had to fight, but he would get around it.

Pressing a studded ring on each staff piece made a blade spring out, and Kaiba began to hack at the thick green nets. He looked back to see that Mai was following him, then Téa, and Joey bringing up the rear. How fitting for him.

The brush began to rustle. Kaiba went through a mental list of monsters that could possibly show up in such a place, but close by a branch snapped, making his ear-fins twitch. Soon enough, something was whispering through the thick walls of leaves nearby. By this time, everyone else had stopped, but Kaiba ordered them to keep moving.

A Flower Wolf sprang into their path, growling.

Behind him, he heard Joey scoff, even as more of them pushed their way through the brush. "I remember these guys. We can take them, easily."

"Easily? Did you really think that I'd base this purely on the strengths of the creatures in Duel Monsters? I'm not making it that simple."

The wolves leapt. Kaiba crouched and thrust his free arm forward, palm up. A blast of White Lightning scoured the wolf, and it dropped in a smoking heap at his claws.

More. He impaled the next one on his staff, and it twitched and died even as he flung it away. The third was probably only stunned by his tail-slap. He saw Mai, using her wing-arms for elevation, snatch the head of a wolf in her whip and slam it to the ground. Searing blasts of pink light meant that Téa was at work, and the crunch of Joey's mace hitting something.

Not all of the kills were instant. One that his tail strike brought down came again and caught his staff arm on the elbow, until he tore its head open with his free claws.

Finally they stood panting, the clearing littered with bodies.

"That all of them?" asked Joey between wheezes.

"Looks like." Mai used a talon to brush hair from her eyes. "Whew. I didn't expect things to be so...explicit."

"These are my rules," said Kaiba. "Here I don't have to follow Industrial Illusion's polices."

He walked off without saying anything more. His palms were still smoking, but he felt no pain. Then a thought hit him.

"Who's too hurt to move. Anyone?"

"No."

"Nuh-uh."

"I'm okay."

"Then we're moving on. We--"

Something grabbed his waist, pinning his wings and cloak to his body, lifting him off the ground. A blast from Téa's staff lanced past, avoiding his ear, and in response a huge eyeless head burst through the trees and opened its fanged jaws, more thorny tentacles slicing the air.

And he had dropped his staff, though Mai, already entangled, used her whip to toss it his way. Kaiba caught it, and severed the smaller tentacle that tried to knock it away.

It lifted them higher. A spiked tongue unrolled from between his jaws. Each tentacle that was hacked away, more came to stop the prey from escaping.

Enough of this. Kaiba plunged his nails into the plantflesh, between the thorns, and released more of his energy. The Lighting moved through his claws and the monster's entire body was alight in a blue-white glow, and the others screamed as fake pain filled their bodies. He pumped another blast into it before the Thorns went through a final death spasm, flinging him to the ground where he curled up just before he hit.

The blackout didn't last long, and he heard the others groaning. Unclenching himself, Kaiba, he saw Joey standing there, offering a hand up. Kaiba growled and stood on his own, resisting the urge to swat the hand away.

Everyone looked slightly charred, but none the worse for wear. Some concessions to pain had to be made, or they would likely have been killed before they reached their target.

"Flower Wolves and then Darkworld Thorns? A little repetitive, don't you think?"

Kaiba looked back at Mai. "It uses the wolves to hunt for it."

"Couldn't we just fly above all this?" Joey asked as they walked. "If you carry me, and Mai carries Téa--"

"How dense are you? There are safeguards in place to stop something like that from happening. The strongest blast couldn't get through the canopy!"

"Sheesh, all I did was ask. I thought you were supposed to be getting nicer."

"Not to stupidity."

"Kaiba!"

He wouldn't bother with Téa. But now what would be happening? Another pack of creatures wasn't likely. The game was simple, but not that simple. Something like--

The ground burbled. "Get back!" shouted Mai, before he could.

Kaiba jumped as the ground came alive, bright green and bubbling. Acid? Quicksand? No time to try what it was. It was spreading like a stain, eating the jungle path as they scrambled backwards.

Joey shouted, "Try to fly anyway, or we're gone!"

No time for a comeback. Kaiba snapped his wings open, but they hit the tree trunks and folded back.

Everyone sprang to the right or the left. Kaiba hit the tree and bent his tail up to protect it, his claws scratching on the trunk as he pulled himself higher.

He looked back over his shoulder. His cloak was turning bright green, and he undid the clasp, tossing it away.

There were lumps in the path, the bodies of the dead Flower Wolves. They were growing smaller, and his cloak was already absorbed.

The trees were not affected so far, but--no, there was just a small patch, spreading up the branch.

Again he was pre-empted, as Mai shouted the command to go forward. Kaiba looked over at Joey, who was on his side of the path, trying to get a handhold on the thicker upper branches. Kaiba grunted and climbed backwards, grabbing Joey's hand and pulling him forward.

"Lose some of that armour. You're weighing me down."

It didn't connect as realistic armour did, and Joey discarded his breastplate and gauntlets easily.

Mai was already far ahead, using her whip to swing through the trees, with Téa clinging to her waist. The other woman had lost her levitational abilities to even things out.

Kaiba swung one-handed, Joey finally getting into it and asking to be let go to follow himself. The trees were cracking behind them, their trunks eroded, but he had no time to think about it. Just to swing, into...

Open space.

As Joey went ahead of him, Kaiba grabbed his arm without thinking, deploying his wings at the same time.

"Well, that wasn't so hard, huh?"

"Don't make me drop you."

"Hey!"

Kaiba turned at the sound of Mai's voice. She flapped her arms once to bring herself over, Téa still hanging on. "So where are we going now?"

"The plan hasn't changed. Forward."

Their cliff had been incongruously jutting over a desert like a gargoyle. Closer to the sand, Kaiba opened his hand and dropped Joey; he landed on his feet, to Kaiba's minor disappointment. "I thought only cats did that."

"Whaaat? Aw, jeez. You know, I'm really getting tired of this. We're supposed to be having fun here, and you're actin' the same way you always do."

Kaiba just growled.

"All right, lay off!"

Mai pushed between them, glaring at him, then at Joey. "Just what's with you two anyway? If you want to change so bad, then start acting like you do. And _you_, stop giving into whatever he does."

She gave them both a rough push to get past them, her talons leaving scratches on Kaiba's breastplate.

Breathing hard, he turned to look at Téa, who stood with her staff slung over one shoulder. "So it's just like it always was." She sounded sad, but looked angry.

"Shut up! I am not--! Don't make a big deal of this. Let's get moving."

Visually it was a true desert, nothing but sand dunes punctuated by the occasional rock and chunk of scrub. But the temperature was nowhere near as high as a real one, more resembling a moderately annoying summer's day.

Kaiba realized that his body was feeling a little tired. The long run and the huge amount of Lightning needed to destroy the Darkworld Thorns was going to put a toll on his simulated energy reserves. He was weaker than he needed to be, and the adventure had barely started.

Their walk stopped at a sort of huge shallow bowl in the sand, where what looked like the remains of several crashed Gradiuses were resting together. Should they go around it to conserve their reserves, or fly over? Something in him rebelled at admitting that they might do the former.

"What was that?"

Something down there was making the debris creak. Stupid, Kaiba told himself. He should have seen that place as a possible threat. Focus. He grabbed Joey again and took flight, seeing Mai do the same with Téa.

Pain sliced through the air near his arm, and it took him a moment to see the smoking hole in his gleaming wing membrane. He stared at it, unbelieving, until he listed to the side, flapping uselessly with the left one--

--and smacked into the surface of a semitransparent pink bubble, which promptly floated up. Kaiba pressed his face to it, squinting through the colour at the wreckage.

But it exploded out of the rubble, silvery shrapnel still clinging to its body. The beast was a Jinzo, its bald, pulsating head and green and yellow mechanical components gleaming in the sun. One large piece of metal had slid diagonally through it, impaling through the shoulder and thigh on opposite sides, but still it lived. It readied another blast between its hands, as Kaiba's bubble was wrenched backwards, sending him head over tail.

No! He had to fight, to tear this creature apart. It wasn't about the hole in his wing, but something older, deeper, that he was right on the verge of remembering if he could see through the anger. It was true sharp rage, unlike what he'd felt towards these others. But he had to get a damn grip now or he'd look like even more of an idiot.

Téa's bubble set Kaiba down on the sand, and he prepared himself again. She was already blasting away, shouting at the others to get to cover, sweat breaking out on her skin. The Jinzo flew closer, blasting from its eyes this time. Kaiba folded his wings as tight as he could, putting them straight behind his body, and joined Téa in shooting. The rage was taking him over anyway, but it was blast or lose. Just like he'd destroyed that Satellite Cannon. Just like he'd destroyed Daimon Lecter, the old fool.

Something in the Jinzo's chest exploded in a short flare of circuits and gore, and it fell back into the metal graveyard. "Heh," said Kaiba softly, before realizing that his legs felt wobbly, and his palms did hurt, a little. But damn him if he collapsed right now.

Still, he turned back to the others, their concerned looks, wondering at the contrast. Of course he'd never put them on the same level as the Big Five, but...

Kaiba walked over to them, and they turned as one to walk farther into the desert.

"Uh...okay."

"I'm sure there's a message in this somewhere." Kaiba opened his eyes again, looked at the other party, who seemed to be just as bad. There was a bandage on Mokuba's top left wing. Bakura's robe was scorched and torn, Yugi's exoskeleton cracked in a several places, and Tristan had also lost most of his armour, just like Joey.

Bakura leaned on his staff. "So...did anyone time us in seconds? Because there is no room for a watch on me."

Joey started laughing, and several of the others did, too. Kaiba would not. They would just get this finished, and this tiredness, this weakness would all be gone from his body.

Something roared inside the cave. Someone, Kaiba couldn't tell who, said, "Oh--"

The Tyrant Dragon charged out like a bull, ear-fins flared and nostrils smoking. Seeing that it was between two groups of intruders, it exhaled, turning its head slowly and scorching the dead ground around its cave. Fortunately, everyone had already leaped back.

"Outta juice still, right." Joey gave Kaiba a little shake. "Just fine. We'll fight like men, 'kay?"

But Mai was already flying around the creature's head, snapping at its unarmoured brows, eyes, and muzzle with her whip, avoiding the dragon's spurts of flame. Kaiba gripped his staff and leaped, driving his foot-claws into its throat and stabbing down hard with one of the bladed ends.

The dragon screamed. Extending its wings it flapped them hard. The gust slammed at the others and sent Mai tumbling through the air, until Mokuba opened a portal and then another, reducing her fall.

The staff wasn't coming loose from the dragon's neck. Harder, he had to pull harder, especially since the dragon had stopped beating its wings and was clawing at him now, roaring in pain. Pushing off its neck, he rolled as he hit the ground and looked up again.

Turning its neck at an impossible angle the dragon tried to take the offending stick out with its mouth, having about as much trouble as Kaiba had. A second later, Joey's thrown mace was protruding from its eye socket, and the dragon's scream became a high shriek that drilled Kaiba's nerves.

"Yeah! You like that, huh! Ha-ha!"

Face oozing, it charged again, blindly. Kaiba rolled out of the way. This time when he got up, they were all attacking at once, blasting, destroying. He joined them, counting on his weapon still in its throat, trying not to curse his weakness but work around it.

Finally the dragon fell on its side, crushing its wing underneath it (Kaiba winced), the fire in its nostrils and jaws turning to smoke then fading entirely.

No one moved, until Joey went to take his morning star from where it was still lodged in the dragon's eye. The handle was probably hot, as he sucked in his breath and released it quickly. Turning back to them, he said, "So, uh, who's going to go in first?"

Mai touched his shoulder. "Hon, let's just say that in this case, everybody wins."

Mokuba laughed, but everyone except Kaiba nodded. Well, maybe--fine, if he could idealize what he and Mokuba had had...he wouldn't scoff at how well this had worked out.

The Dragon's Treasure was on a pedestal shaped like a two-legged dragon. Its wings propped up the enormous carved sphere.

Joey "Do you think it's an egg or something?"

"No, just a big pearl." Mokuba tapped it with one finger-claw. "It's nice. And to make a needless statement, I guess it's time to get out of here."

Everyone agreed. The world warped and twisted, taking away their bodies and their pain and tiredness as well.

"You'll feel some aftereffects," said Kaiba as everyone left their pods. "You'll feel like those extra limbs are still there for a while.

"No problem here!" said Joey. Patting his chest and stomach, he added, "Though I could swear I'm still wearing that stuff."

"Dinner is in a few hours. You have the run of the place. In reason."

"Oh, come on." Mai walked up to him. "I haven't ever been in this place. I'd rather have a tour, if you don't mind."

You can walk yourself, he thought, before admonishing him. "Sure. Come this way."

After a while, Mai said, "You know I just had to say, I've been around rich people, and usually their mansions don't look like this. The decorations are..." She gestured to a large statue of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

"Well, there used to be more..._conventional_ decor. But I had a charity auction after I took this house. There used to be paintings and sculptures, and for some weird reason, a multi-era collection of war antiques, but they're all gone now."

"I see. So it was your way of starting over, huh?"

"You could say that. I saw it as payback, too."

Instead of asking her how much she knew, he told her the whole story, while continuing the tour. By this time it was dinner, and Mai didn't say anything to the additional knowledge, but added that all Joey had said was that Kaiba had had an abusive "stepfather" (Kaiba really didn't know why he'd kept using the wrong term), but had outwitted him and taken the company away to modify it.

Everyone had different meals, which they had been allowed to specially request beforehand. It went well, though Kaiba disliked Joey's idea to toast Kaiba's birthday and "newfound social graces". He watched, distantly, as they tried the indoor pool, took drinks that he'd bought only for the occasion, and then accepted their gifts. Not once did he scoff or snarl at anything, though sometimes he had the urge to.

It was late when they left, leaving Kaiba standing on the top steps with Téa and Mokuba.

"I'm going to bed." Kaiba turned to go back into the mansion. "Anything you want to use in here is yours."

"Kaiba, wait!"

He stopped, turned to her.

"I know this is going to sound like an empty platitude, but you're better than you think you are. And if you idealize your relationship with Mokuba, why not with anyone else?"

There was nothing original and many things incorrect in what she said. But with effort he held it all back. He would make it be automatic, not take effort not to snap at these people. One more step.

Mokuba tapped her arm. "Come on, let's go inside. You've got to get up early for your flight back."


	7. Chapter 6

**Childhood's End**

**Chapter 6**

He would not look away. Even as Mai blinked, looking completely dumbstruck, that somehow hurting more than a withering glare.

"You know...that I don't want you, right?"

"Of course!" He practically growled the words. "Why do you think I wanted to talk to you? I know all that's wrong with this."

"But someone convinced you to talk about it. And I have a pretty good idea as to who."

Kaiba tried to find something to say, but couldn't.

"So what are you going to do?"

"There's nothing I _can _do. I'm not going to try anything with you, and certainly not to catch you on the rebound, when and if that might happen."

"Damaged goods?"

"...What?"

"Nothing. I guess that's not what I expected, though if you really were going to try something you'd hardly tell me about it."

Why did Mai have to make it so frustrating? "I'm not a lying sneak. I know the difference between games and real life, and I'm not going to pull any of the bull that you seen in TV."

"What kind of 'bull'?"

Kaiba sat up even straighter. "I'm not going to try to 'win' you. I'm not going to get into fistfights with Joey. I'm not going to stalk you, moon over you, make a virtual copy of you, or assume you'll want me because I have money. Et cetera."

"Giving up? That's not like you."

"I. Know. The. Difference. Why can't you understand that? Do you think that you're a prize, not a person?"

She glared at him. "Okay, okay. I guess that I do. It's a pride thing."

"Huh?"

"You're trying to deny that you'd stoop to choosing someone that a person you hate also did."

"No!" Kaiba sat back down on the couch. "I don't...I don't think you're some kind of trash prize."

How had it started? More importantly, why should he still be asking himself the question? The real question was what he was going to do about it.

"Well, then. I guess I should say that I never expected you to be so...progressive."

"I'm just being pragmatic. Whenever I watched TV with Mokuba, those games seemed ridiculous, dishonest. I don't make exceptions for women either way. I don't go for that stupid macho competition."

"Er...how short is your memory?"

He scoffed. "I told you, games and the boardroom are different from this. I don't have to prove myself to anyone, and I don't believe in going after a lost cause, especially when that cause can talk." He'd phrased it the wrong way. Idiot.

"Putting it in black and white, huh? Are you going to tell Joey? I'm guessing that you don't want to."

"Hmph. I don't need him getting...territorial."

"And that's what you're worried about, isn't it? That something like this will send the entire thing crashing down. You're right that he won't be entirely okay with this; maybe he will feel a little threatened. But he's not about to take out a rapier. He knows that he can trust me."

And, anyway, who wanted to see him come belatedly to fumbling discovery? Even thinking about that was barely enough to stand. Maybe it would be better to remain celibate than to have that humiliation, even if now the spark had been struck. Mai was also entrenched in stereotypes and practices that he didn't want to deal with. Why should he even feel this way? Because she still liked Duel Monsters? Similar past trauma? Admiring her bluntness? It was senseless. She was social, liked to drink and party...

"I think he should know. One, it's common courtesy. Two, he's nicer than you give him credit for."

"Mn."

"Kaiba, I'm not for you or against you. I'm not going to pat you on the back and say that because you're an honourable, passionate guy you'd be good for romance. You can probably get to a point where you could be in a relationship, but only if you want to buckle down and do it."

"I know that. Do you think that I believed you'd leave Joey for me? This is just a stupid infatuation, my brain firing off in the wrong way. I'm just going to wait it out."

"Well, maybe the guys could introduce you to someone."

"I don't want people like that."

"_I'm_ 'people like that'."

"But you have--you're--" He didn't know what else to say.

Mai touched his arm, setting off something in him. But he wouldn't move at all, not hinting at how he exaggerated it without wanting to. "We already both know this isn't going to go anywhere, so calm down."

"There's nothing else I needed to tell you. You can leave."

"Now I'm just wondering if you're going to be okay by yourself."

"I've got plenty of things to distract me."

"Uh-huh."

"So what do you want me to do? Apologize?" His question came out peevish.

"How can you? All things considered, there are a lot of worse ways that you could handle it. I'm really surprised by you, and not in a bad way. Though I still have to admit, it seems, uh..."

"Creepy?"

Mai smirked. "I admit it, but it's not going to bring everything down. Not unless you let it." She got up and walked quickly towards the front of the house. He followed her, stood at what was hopefully a good distance as she put her coat on. If she found that too intimidating, it was her fault for being so sensitive.

No, maybe that was the wrong way to think. What was happening to him, that he'd suddenly become so quivering and indecisive? Regardless he was already in the foyer.

"I'll tell Joey soon, but remember what I said. People like you and me, sometimes we see everybody in terms of our own flaws. That's not healthy."

"Soon" probably meant right after she got back to the apartment. _Their_ apartment. "So," he said in a wry tone, "are you asking me not to assume that everyone's as bad as me?"

She frowned. "Yeah. Think about it, won't you? You seem to know what the score is."

"I already said it was creepy, didn't I?"

By this time she was halfway out the door, gripping the handle. She nodded and closed it. He listened to her going down the steps, and her car driving away.

Work. He had to do some work. Get up to the study and work.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Two hours later, the phone rang. It was Joey's apartment number. Kaiba reminded himself not to snap, "What?" into the receiver, only waited.

"Uh...okay, so I guess you know what this is all about. Er...I guess our little Kaiba's all grown up, huh?"

"Get to the point."

"There's no point, okay? I mean, sure, my inner caveman is about to throw a fit, but I can deal with it. Mai told me what's going on. She says you're doing real good, you said you wouldn't be weird about it. It's good."

Joey didn't sound so convinced. But, really, what else was he going to hope for?

"Listen, why don't we see--ah, geez--why don't we see if we can set you up with someone? I bet Yugi knows some people who would like..."

"No."

"Huh?"

"I'm not going to do it on your terms. I'm not going to go by your rules. And I'm not sure if I want to do it yet."

"Why not?"

Tersely he explained his objections. It was fear. He was afraid of acknowledging that he was stunted in any facet of his life. Well, he'd just have to get over it.

"But Kaiba, it's--geez--you mean you never...?"

"I just didn't have those feelings either way."

"Huh?"

"They just never came up. Not till now."

"I don't believe you. You were a _teenage boy_, for crying out loud!"

"Believe it." What, was Joey offended or something?

"Man, that's really something."

He sounded amused. What the heck for?

"Hey, man, don't drop this all at once. If you get it done right, falling in love's the most wonderful thing in the world. Sure it hurts, too, but I figure you could take a little pain. Everybody had to go through that awkward stage. You're just going through yours a little later."

"I'll do it whenever I decide it's right for me." At least it didn't feel as bad as when Mokuba had left. It felt like something in which he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, even as this kind of love was completely different, a fire that sometimes seemed to want to burn up his insides and his mind.

"All right, all right, all right. So what we're going to do, is just go with your plan as normal. Pretend this never happened."

"Tell the others if you want, I don't care. I'm probably already the subject of your gossip."

"'Course you are. This is still big news."

He hated it when Joey got glib. Had he been like that when they were younger? He couldn't remember. Everything had suddenly narrowed down to this phone call.

And there was a tension inside the other man's tone, he probably could have heard it right away if he hadn't been so blind to such things. Joey very much wasn't okay with it, but probably anything he could say to object would make things look worse for all of them.

"Hey! Space to Kaiba, you still there?"

"I'm here." Kaiba reminded himself that this wasn't supposed to be sunshine and roses. He ought to count himself lucky that they had accepted him at all, after the gap, what he'd said to them.

"Just...uh, think that at least you know you can do it. I'm sure that you're gonna find someone, one of these days."

"I told you, I'm going to do this on my own terms. I need to be comfortable with all of you before I can move on to strangers, to your other friends. I'll get over Mai. Easily. I'm not going to push anything."

"I guess it's just hard to believe, you know? I didn't think you _liked_ girls, or, er, if that offends ya, I'm sorry."

"Don't be stupid. I don't care about things like that."

"I take your word that you're not going to do anything funny with Mai, okay? And she trusts you, too. I'll, uh, talk to you later."

Kaiba hung up the phone himself. He wondered what it would feel like, not only to be in love, but to have it given back. Would it change him, or would he still be strong and smart in this, as well? Did he even have any idea of what to do? Or would he ruin it? This somehow asked more than being a friend, it would make him vulnerable in new ways.

He sank back in his chair. Doing that probably made him look pathetic. But he would be true to his word. In a way he was better off than some other people might be: his slate was clean, disliking everybody equally leaving no time for certain petty stereotypes.

Maybe someday he could work with that.

But right now he'd drive to Joey's apartment and say...what? Sorry for my undead hormones targeting your girlfriend, even though nothing's going to happen? No. Stupid. He'd talked to Mai first for a reason, and Joey would just have to get over it.

_Maybe I could think of this as my first major test of a new life. Or something._

A few minutes later his car was screaming into Domino, before he remembered to slow down. The drive felt like it took no time at all, and there he was, standing across the street, staring at the light on in the apartment. Of course he locked his car down, but only vaguely remembered doing it.

Were they fighting? Or silently looking at each other in their own weird guilt? If either of those were real, they would be hard to understand. It was his fault, but he'd done all he knew how to do. Right?

Kaiba pressed the bell, stood rigid, though suddenly he wanted to fidget. "It's me. I'm coming up."

A long pause. It was Mai who answered. "Come on up."

It didn't look like anything was wrong, except the both of them were huddled by the door, looking out at him as he opened it and they stepped back.

They didn't say anything, so he would start. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, so why don't I just let you guide me?"

"What are you talking about?" That was Joey.

"I thought something like this just shouldn't be let go. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me after saying my peace but I had some idea that...that...it would still mean something to _you_, and I should do something." What the heck was wrong with him, anyway?

"We're doing fine," said Mai. It's just a little strange, that's all."

"What? Didja expect us to be fighting or something? But I have to admit...right before she was finished coming through the door, I asked her how it was. And I guess the really weird part is thinking about you like that."

"Liking women?" said Kaiba in a deadpan tone.

"I expected you to be a little more possessive. With how ya--"

"We're not going into that again, all right?"

"Sure." But Joey grinned, and added, "It means there's hope for you yet!"

Kaiba couldn't smile. Not yet. "So what do you want?"

"For you to get over yourself. You're being really good about this. Real good. You take responsibility, you suck it up and deal with it. Heh. I guess ya do have good qualities after all."

This time he could tell that he was joking, but he suddenly wanted to look away from them. If they were having difficulties, would they tell him? Of course not.

"Ya know what the real trick is?"

Kaiba turned to look at Joey.

"No one really knows what the heck they're doing, 'specially when it comes to their hearts. You've obviously still gotta watch yourself, but not _all the time. _Relax."

"All right. But just one thing."

"What?"

"I'm going to be the first to tell Yugi about this."

"Huh? Oh, sure, sure."

A short while ago he'd been talking to Yugi about divisions, his former rival had been talking about that divide, about wondering if the fact that he still lived at home and had hardly changed his interests and appearance meant he was less mature than his friends. "It just makes me feel a little insecure, you know?" was what Yugi had said to him.

"I don't care about someone's interests or where they live. That's an idiotic way to determine maturity."

"So I guess we're alike."

"No, we're not. I took my home by force, and it's more mine than yours is. And you have friends."

"True. But there's something else. It's, well, it's about us. I don't just want to be the person you play games with just to get that old fire back. I'm here to help you, too.

"I mean, think of it this way: you said you don't know why you keep paying attention to Joey. But he's got that something. You can see him as a person, even as a person to hate, while I'm just always going to be the person who defeated you. That's something I want you to overcome."

Kaiba had snorted. "One of many."

Now: "Oh, hi, Kaiba. What is it?"

Kaiba inhaled slowly. "I fell in love with Mai, decided to stay away from her, and told her and Joey about it. Everyone's okay."

Yugi gaped at him, but after a few moments managed to choke out a, "Huh?"

"I wanted to tell you. You were worried about being left out of this."

"Well, yeah, but...you say everything's all right?"

"Mm-hm."

"How did you manage that?"

He explained his ideals to Yugi, who blinked at him.

"Don't tell me you're surprised, too."

"Um, you can't really be annoyed at me for that. But thanks for letting me know."

"I remember Mokuba telling me about a similar thing that happened."

"Me and Bakura, right. He took it just as well as you seem to be doing. But we got together once. A couple times, actually. Kind of like Mai and Joey, heh. Uh, do you want to come in?"

Kaiba entered without saying yes or no. He went to the couch.

"I can't believe it either. I haven't seen her for years, and I barely even thought about her."

"Well, she is pretty beautiful, I mean..."

"Please. Just because she's some 'ideal', doesn't mean every straight guy is going to want her."

"So why do you?"

"I don't know. It's not going to matter anymore, anyway."

"Okay, sure. Do you want some tea or anything?"

"No."

Yugi just stood there for a moment, then said. "Let me guess; you're wanting results faster than you're getting them." He moved to sit down beside him.

"Oh, forget it. I know this is different. That's the entire point of what I said to Mai. I've dealt with a hundred setbacks and I've beaten them all."

Silence for a while. "I think you're doing good," Yugi finally said. "Call me idealistic--well, actually I call myself idealistic--but I always hoped that you'd come back and try to be friends with us. Of course," He chuckled, "You probably already saw that."

"It's not like Joey put up much of a fight against me, either."

"Heh. Well, it just proves that we're bound in some ways. Maybe it's fate."

"Hmph."

"Okay, I know you don't believe in that. I'm not going to try to convince you. And it's not always going to be just us."

"Yeah. Someday."

"So...now that you're here, want to play a game? It doesn't have to be Duel Monsters if you don't want to."

He wondered if Mai would ever take him up on the offer for a duel now. "No, we'll do that."

"Just at home. Without all the bells and whistles."

"Right." Kaiba reached into his pocket.

"You always keep it with you?"

"Surprised? I wasn't born obsessing over it." Kaiba looked at the deck in his hands. "I had a time when it was just sentimental to me. I couldn't give that up. It was the obsession, not the cards." And he even found himself relaxing a little.

"Oh. Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I didn't want to." Kaiba paused, before pushing up off the couch. "Let's go."

-----------------------------------------------------------

Yugi stared at the pocket calculator on his hands, then slowly he put it down next to him, holding his hands together, staring at the mat. "So..."

"'So' what?"

"How does it feel, after all this time?"

"I stopped caring about that a long time ago. And I've beaten you a few times in virtual battles." But Kaiba was trying very hard to suppress the urge to shiver. Years after he thought he'd lost interest, on a completely innocuous day, sitting on the floor with just a mat and a deck and a calculator...he'd won. "Don't say to me that it's an omen. Or anything about the Heart of the Cards."

But, looking a little sly, Yugi said, "Maybe you've finally earned it. Do you really think you'd have handled this thing with Mai as gracefully before?"

Kaiba allowed himself a sigh. "Believe it if you want. Tell everybody if you want. I don't mind."

"Promise?" Yugi asked, and stuck out his hand.

Over the mat, they shook on it.


End file.
